Seven for Tanelorn
by Argonaut57
Summary: Captain Titus receives a request for help from the people of the moon Tanelorn. To aid them he must summon six other warriors from across time and space to combat the evil known as The Master. Follow-on to "Captain Titus' Discharge" .
1. Chapter 1

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**One**

_Zenga's Bar, Gamma Altair 4_

"Some really classy places you bring me to!" Mira told Titus, looking around her.

"At least nobody's shooting at us!" He told her. "Or even staring."

This was true. Mira had never seen a place with quite so many species gathered together. There were humans, of course. But so many, and of so many different types, that Titus' seven and a half foot bulk went unnoticed. As to the Xenos, they ran the gamut from slender, delicate insectoids to hulking reptiloids, all rubbing shoulders relatively peacefully.

Once upon a time, the sight of so many Xenos would have had the former Ultramarine and his Imperial Guardsman companion reaching for their guns. But in the days, or weeks, or months that had passed since they had fled the wreck of the _Scourge of Heresy_ in a dead TimeLords' TARDIS, they had both encountered species of every kind, and had on more than one occasion found themselves siding with Xenos against rapacious humans.

However, they were here to meet a human, and Mira now pointed across the bar:

"There's John and Morgan, and it looks like they brought their clients with them."

John Dillulo was a middle-sized man in his late fifties, tough as leather, with a face that had seen everything and steady grey eyes. He wore the standard grey coverall of a starman, with nothing to mark him out as one of the best-known and most respected Mercenary leaders in the Galaxy. By contrast, Morgan Chane was in his thirties, darkly handsome and blockily built; he had an open face, a charming manner, and was one of the most dangerous men Mira knew. Chane's parents had been Christian missionaries who had chosen to pursue their calling on the planet Varna. That planet's notorious heavy gravity had slowly killed both of them, and had almost killed their son – but not quite. Morgan Chane had grown up on Varna, adapted to the gravity there, and when he was old enough, he had joined the other young men of Varna, raiding across the worlds with the dreaded Starwolves, before a quarrel with one of their leaders had forced him into exile and the life of a Merc.

They were sharing the table with two Xenos. One was a tallish, thin and angular humanoid with hawklike features, pointed ears and a greenish cast to his skin. He was wearing a simple white robe and looked distinctly uncomfortable in this setting. The other was about four feet tall, stocky, and covered in fur, wearing a rag-tag costume made of leather and cloth, and staring about him with undisguised curiosity.

"A Vulcan and an Ewok." Titus remarked. "Unusual combination."

"Maybe that's why John contacted us." Mira replied. "He knows we do unusual."

Greetings were friendly, Titus and Mira had got involved in a situation recently that had ended up making a considerable profit for Dillulo's Merc crew and liberating a human colony from some rather unpleasant aliens. Chane grinned at Mira and gestured to the cast on her left arm:

"What happened there?"

"I got into an argument with a Sontaran captain." Mira told him. "He lost, but he did manage to make one good point!"

"Anyway," Titus said, "why did you call us, John, and who are our guests?"

"These are Lavok and Maki." Dillulo explained. "They have a situation, and came to us for help. But they can't afford to hire a Merc crew and anyway, what they're dealing with sounds a bit more in your line."

"In other words, it's weird!" Chane added. "Let them explain, John."

Dillulo nodded to Lavok, who began to speak in the dry, precise manner of all Vulcans.

"Maki and I represent a small community who live on a moon called Tanelorn. Tanelorn orbits a gas giant which is part of a white dwarf system. The only reason the moon is habitable is that the gas giant radiates as much heat, close to, as a sun.

"That is not the only odd thing about Tanelorn, however. None of us who live there came by conventional means, and we represent many different species. We have Vulcans and Ewoks, as you can see, but we also have Minbari, Menoptera, Drazi, Humans and others. The one thing we have in common is that, as far as our homeworlds are concerned, we are all dead!"

"Exiles?" Titus asked, though he didn't think so - something about the name 'Tanelorn' was nagging at the back of his mind.

Maki spoke in the odd Ewok tongue, which both Titus and Mira understood through the TARDIS translation matrix.

"Not exiles. Literally dead! I was shot by an Imperial Stormtrooper on my homeworld of Endor. I recall crawling into an old hollow tree, then everything went black. Then I woke up, still inside a hollow tree, only I was fully healed and the tree was on Tanelorn."

"And I," Lavok told them, "Was part of a crew developing a new type of warp engine. Something went wrong, the ship broke up, and my crew and I woke up on Tanelorn.

"That kind of experience is common to all of us who live there. Most of us are quite content in our lives. The moon is fertile, there are few dangerous animals. We farm, we have artisans and craftsmen among us, we live simply but well. All of us were to some degree unsatisfied with our former lives, and the way we live on Tanelorn suits us better."

"Most of us, anyway," Maki continued. "But there are others who aren't so content. Dark souls, hard and cruel people. Our little town has a wall and a ditch, and the farmers who live outside build sturdy houses with solid doors.

"Until a little while ago, these others roamed around alone, or in small gangs. They spent most of their time fighting among themselves. Then the darkest soul of all arrived. All we know is that he calls himself The Master, and he has subjugated not only all the outlaw bands, but even the lone wanderers.

"Before, when the gangs came near the farms or the town, we could lock them out and bribe them with spare food and goods - there was never a lack. But now the Master has a virtual army, and he's not interested in bribes. He demands our surrender, that we accept him as absolute ruler. He's given us a Standard month to reply. If we refuse, he promises to raze our town and kill us all."

"We will not live in subjection." Lavok stated flatly. "But we have few weapons and less skill in fighting. Maki and I were sent out in the only functional runabout we have to seek help. We approached the Mercs first, but as Captain Dillulo says, we have nothing to offer them. But the Captain was kind enough to hear us out, and he offered to contact you, Captain Titus, in the hope that you could help.

"We are not entirely empty-handed. Our Counsellor said I should show you these..."

He produced a carved wooden box, which he opened. Inside were seven objects: a small pendant of ancient design on a leather thong; a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon; a milky gem which swirled with unnameable colours; a cylindrical device with some kind of handle at one end; another gem, a blood-red, heart-shaped ruby; there was an exquisite miniature portrait of a beautiful woman; finally, there was a perfectly ordinary-looking pocket watch.

As Titus looked at each of these objects, and image and a name appeared in his mind. He was getting used to this sort of thing now, his TimeLord heritage was surfacing in odd ways. But the pocket watch drew his eye like a magnet. He looked up at Lavok.

"Do you have holo-images of these?"

The Vulcan nodded and handed over a projector. Titus took it and rose, Mira with him.

"It may take me some time to find the men I need. Return to Tanelorn and make such preparations as you can. I will be with you before your month is out, with allies.

"John, Morgan, until next time."

Something was clearly troubling Titus, but Mira knew her man well enough to leave him alone until they reached the TARDIS. Once they had taken off, however, she said, "Which one was it?"

"The watch." He told her. "I have very few memories of my father, Mira, my TimeLord father. But one thing I do recall. I never saw him without that watch."

That was all he would say. Mira knew that Space Marine training, and the genetic alterations that made men into superhuman fighting machines, were supposed to erase sentiment. But those who had chosen Titus to be an Ultramarine, and had made those changes to a teenage boy from an agri-world, did not, could not have, known that his dead father had been one of a race of highly-evolved Xenos. It had made him different even before exposure to the Warp had awakened his TimeLord DNA. The Adeptus Astartes were supposed to be beyond love, beyond sex, but Mira had been drawn to Titus at their first meeting, and she had felt his response, however muted. Later, after all the events on the Forge-World, and the even stranger ones aboard the _Scourge of Heresy_, their relationship had expanded. No longer a soulless military machine, devoted to the service of the Imperium of Man, Titus had become a free man and her lover, and Mira was happier than she had ever dreamed she could be.

But something about him was still incomplete. She had seen him trying to grasp at ideas, at knowledge, which he knew should be part of him, but which he could not quite reach. Mira had hoped that they would encounter the enigmatic Doctor again, and that he would be able to help. But perhaps this physical link with his father would serve to open the locked doors in Titus' mind, and make him everything he could be.

"Where to now?" She asked him.

"A long time ago," he told her, "in a galaxy far, far away."

_The Junden Wastes, planet Tatooine_

It was fortunate, thought Obi-Wan for perhaps the millionth time in the last five years, that Jedi training stressed a simple, frugal lifestyle. This dust-ball of a world afforded little else to its inhabitants, with the possible exception of Jabba the Hutt. There was no luxury in the scattered farms, and little comfort even in the towns such as Anchorhead or Mos Isley.

What there was here, was solitude. The nomadic Tusken Raiders and Jawas passed Obi-Wans' hut by, the one out of fear, the other because there was no business to be done there. Even the tentacles of Jabba's criminal empire didn't stretch out here; there was no profit to be made from the dirt-poor farmers of the Wastes. Though if Jabba had known that a Jedi Knight lived there, his bounty-hunters might have proved to be a minor annoyance. Emperor Palpatine was known to be generous in his rewards to anyone who could produce a dead Jedi.

But Obi-Wan was not here simply to hide. A hour's journey away was the small-holding of Owen and Beru Lars, who were raising their 'nephew', a five-year-old boy named Luke Skywalker. The secret of Luke's parentage, and his possible destiny, was a secret that Obi-Wan was pledged to guard, along with the boy's life.

He was also there to study. The power and nature of the Force was something that could perhaps never be truly understood, even after a lifetime. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan was determined to understand as much of it as a human lifetime would allow him to learn. In this effort he had had the aid of the old Jedi Master, Yoda, who had taught him how to commune with the spirit of his former mentor, Qui-Gonn Jinn.

"Come out, sorceror!" The shout was unexpected. Obi-Wan had been deep in meditation and had not sensed anyone approach. He got up and went to the door of his hut. Outside were about a dozen young men – boys, really – who he recognised from his trips to Anchorhead for supplies. They were armed with an assortment of sticks, tools and sports equipment, and most of them radiated a mixture of fear and bravado. Except the leader, a scrawny youth with greasy dark hair and a pointed face, whose aura throbbed with rage.

Obi-Wan recognised him as the son of one of Anchorhead's store-keepers, a youngster with whom he had had a brief 'discussion' on his last trip. The boy had been pressing his attentions onto an obviously unwilling girl, and Obi-Wan had intervened, hauling the lad before his outraged father, who had taken him severely and publicly to task before forcing him to apologise to the girl and her family.

This could be problematic. An ordinary gang of kids, come out to hassle the eccentric hermit, could be handled easily. But under the influence of a leader who was clearly a borderline psychopath, they would be less easy to scare without a greater demonstration of power than Obi-Wan was prepared to give. But the leader was speaking again:

"There you are! Did you think we were stupid? Did you think we wouldn't realise that everything has gone wrong in Anchorhead since you came here? We barely make enough to live, we eat dust and roots while you squat here and laugh at us!"

Obi-Wan spoke quietly, reasonably. "Everybody on Tatooine lives on dust and roots, boy. Nothing else grows here. Put the blame where it belongs, on Jabba the Hutt, and the Imperial Governor. I've got less than you. If I were a sorceror, wouldn't I be living in luxury?"

"How do we know you aren't?" The youth yelled. "Nobody's ever seen the inside of that hut, after all! But we're going to, now! We're going to take all your treasure and burn that hut with you in it!"

"I'm afraid I can't allow that!" This was a new voice, deep and confident, and it came from the rocky bluff under which Obi-Wan's hut nestled. Everyone looked up to see a huge figure outlined against the sky. There was a pause, and then the figure descended the bluff in a series of agile bounds to land beside Obi-Wan. He was as tall as a Wookiee, and if anything, broader and heavier, but he was obviously human, with a pleasant face marred by old scars. He gazed at the gang of youths and spoke again.

"You're being idiots, and most of you know it. I don't know what you," he pointed at the leader, "have against this man, but it was silly of the rest of you to get dragged into this. Go on home, all of you, before you get hurt!"

It was absolutely the wrong thing to say to a gang of teenage boys. It put them on their mettle, and they charged the stranger in a mob.

Obi-Wan was to look back on the next few moments with fond amusement for the rest of his life. The big stranger never once appeared to exert himself, but teenage boys went flying in all directions! Nobody, the Jedi noticed, got seriously hurt, but the message being given was very clear – for all their numbers, the kids had no chance.

But then the leader pulled out a small blaster pistol which he levelled at the stranger's back. Obi-Wan had no way of knowing how much, if any, damage the weapon might do, but he didn't want to chance it. He put out a hand and the blaster flew out of the youth's grip into his. Fortunately nobody saw what happened, as the rest of the gang were already in full flight. That left Obi-Wan, the giant, and the gang leader, who was now shivering and gibbering with fright.

Obi-Wan spoke quietly to the youth.

"You saw nothing, you never had this blaster."

"I didn't see anything, I don't have a blaster." The boy intoned.

"You came here, you got slapped around, you won't come here again."

The lad repeated his instructions.

"Go home." Obi-Wan told him. The boy fled and Obi-Wan turned to face his unexpected ally.

"Thank you," he said, "I could have handled them, but it would have been hard to explain how. But who am I saying thank you to?"

"My name is Titus." The big man told him. "You are General Obi-Wan Kenobi, hero of the Clone Wars and Jedi Knight."

"You will forget that, forget you saw me." Obi-Wan said. Regrettable but necessary.

Titus laughed. "At the risk of sounding cliched, your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me, I'm afraid. I'm part TimeLord and all Space Marine, so my brain is a bit more complicated than most.

"Setting that aside, I need your help, General, and I can offer something in return."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "What I'm doing here is too important to leave, Titus. Also, if you know anything about Jedi, you know we aren't mercenaries."

Titus shrugged. "You wouldn't be gone long, Obi-Wan, and young Luke will be safe for another ten years at least - you can trust me on that. As for payment, that wasn't exactly what I was talking about. Do you recognise this?"

He held up a holo-projector, and the image of a lightsabre sprang up. Obi-Wan had been about to ask how this man knew about Luke, when the full import of the image struck him.

"That's Anakin's lightsabre!" He whispered. "How? Where?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Titus said. "But I've seen the actual item, and the people who need our help have it. They're willing to give it to you if you can help them."

Then the ghostly form of another Jedi was standing between them.

"You need to do this, Obi-Wan." Said Qui-Gonn Jinn firmly. "It's part of your destiny, part of Luke's, and part of Anakin's. When Luke is old enough, you must have that lightsabre ready for him."

Qui-Gonn vanished. Titus, who had clearly been able to see him, waited patiently whilst Obi-Wan considered for a moment, then looked up and said, "Very well, Titus, I'm your man!"

_The Isle of Melnibone_

The ruins of Imrryr held too many memories, so even though the thing he sought might well be buried among them, Elric chose to make his camp outside the city. Unlike the majority of his people, Elric had always felt at home among the sights, sounds and scents of nature and now he found a rare moment of content as he sat by a crackling fire. The hour, he judged, was long past midnight, but still he sat. Sleep was no blessing for him, and he put off the moment when he must sink into his tormenting dreams.

How long he sat there, not really thinking, simply breathing, he was not sure, but the snap of a twig brought all his senses to the alert. Elric was no longer a pampered princeling, his years of wandering as a sword for hire had toughened and sharpened him. This was no animal and there were many of them. He rose to his feet, a tall, slender figure, and as he did so, he picked up the great sword that lay on the ground beside him and hooked the scabbard to his belt. The flickering flame gave a golden cast to his bone-white face and hair, but his strange eyes still burned crimson.

They came shambling out of the woods, twisted, misshapen, some with too few limbs, some with too many, eyes that glowed green or yellow, or were pitch-black. Elric knew what they were, the hellish, grotesque results of sorcerous experiments performed by Melnibonean nobles on human slaves. He had assumed that when Imrryr had been sacked, these abominations had been either slain or left to starve. Clearly, this was not the case, and some at least had escaped the city to live wild in the woods and glades of the island.

Elric kept his hand away from his sword-hilt, he was not a typical Melnibonean in that he had a capacity for compassion, and he had no wish to kill these pathetic creatures. Much depended now on how they remembered their masters.

The leader, a gross monstrosity with bulbous body, spindly limbs, and an oversized head with a half-melted face came close to him. Its' mouth worked for a moment, then it managed a guttural word.

"Ma-ker?"

Elric nodded. "I am one of those who made you and your kind, yes. I have not come here to trouble you. Begone, and I will leave you in peace. Obey your maker."

The travesty of a face twisted into a horrible leer. "O-bey?" the thing grunted. "No. We kill ma-kers!"

Elric sprang back as the mob advanced on him. Reluctantly, he drew his runesword from the scabbard. The blade gave its' usual yell of bloodlust and Elric held it before him, hoping to cow the motley group with the sight of the weapon. He still did not wish to kill these former men, but _Stormbringer_ had other ideas. The great black blade swung up, dragging Elric's hand with it, then arced down, striking the leader where the neck joins the shoulder and shearing down into the chest. The creature shrieked, the hellsword crooned, and Elric gasped as strength flowed into him.

There was no retreat now, even if Elric had dared to flee through the forest at night. He stood his ground, both hands on the hilt of _Stormbringer_, hacking about him with the howling sword. He realised that there were many more of these creatures than he had thought, and that they were not unarmed. It seemed that the armouries of Imrryr had not been completely sacked, and some of the former slaves had armed themselves with a selection of swords, maces and axes. Despite the battle-joy of his runesword, Elrics' mood was resigned. There were too many, and sooner or later one or more would take him from behind. A grim kind of justice, to die within sight of the slender towers his treachery had burned.

Then there was a pause, the mob drawing back. Elric felt a presence on ether side of him. To his right, a middle-sized man in a robe, holding a sword whose blade seemed to be a shaft of blue-white light. On his left, an armoured giant carrying a double-bladed axe that crackled with something like lightning.

There was no time to exchange names, or to ask questions, the mob was only surprised, and attacked at once. The three men stood back to back, dealing out death and destruction until the corpses were heaped around them. The twisted monstrosities neither gave quarter nor asked for it, and it was more than an hour later that the last one – an oversized beast with too many arms – went down under the armoured man's crackling axe.

Elric turned to face his unknown allies. He kept his runesword drawn, but _Stormbringer_ seemed oddly subdued, resting silent in his hand. Nevertheless, he spoke with the cool arrogance natural to his people.

"I assume you know who I am, gentlemen. May I ask why you chose to aid me? Most men of the Young Kingdoms would stand by and watch one of my breed torn to pieces, relishing the spectacle."

It was the larger of the two men who spoke, in a deep, measured tone.

"We do indeed know you. You are Elric of Melnibone, also called Elric the Necromancer, Elric White Wolf and the Traitor of Imrryr. You were the last King of the city over there, and the reason why it now lies in ruins."

"I had my reasons for that sir, and I neither need nor care for your judgement." Elric replied, though he was feeling less confident than he appeared. The quiescence of the Hellsword in his hand was troubling him.

The giant shook his head. "I am not your judge, Sir Elric. Even if I were, your story is well enough known in certain places. Much of what you did was justified in itself, and the rest is part of a larger pattern.

"As for us, I am Captain Titus, Ultramarine of the Imperium of Man, and this is Sir Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight of the Old Republic. We have travelled a great distance across time and space to ask for your aid, Sir Elric, and we do not come empty-handed."

Titus held out some kind of sigil or talisman that produced a cone of light. Inside the light was an insubstantial image of a gem – an unusual, milky gem that swirled with colours, some of which existed nowhere else in this world.

"The Heart of Arioch!" Elric exclaimed. "It was to seek that very gem that I returned here. It was not among the loot taken, nor among the wrecked ships of the raiders' fleet. I thought Yrkoon might have concealed it somewhere in the city, so I came here to search.

"How did you obtain it?"

"I did not," Titus admitted, "it is in the keeping of those who seek our aid, along with other items that belong to me and to Obi-Wan here. They require our blades and skills if they are to survive, and offer us these items in return, having nothing else of worth."

Eric sheathed his sword and gave a crooked grin. "Yonder gem would buy a whole kingdom in this world, Captain! A fair bargain indeed! I am with you then, but if there is any deceit in this, let the deceivers look to themselves!"

Titus inclined his head, and gestured for Elric to accompany them. They made their way to a nearby cove, not the one on which Elric had beached his small boat, where another vessel was anchored a little way out. It looked to Elric like the pleasure-craft of some princeling of the Young Kingdoms, and he wondered how it had crossed the treacherous seas that lay between Melnibone and the nearest port. A skiff was beached nearby, which Titus launched with a single shove. The three climbed aboard. Obi-Wan seated himself cross-legged in the bow and made a small gesture.

Accustomed as he was to sorcery, Elric was nevertheless surprised at what happened next. His witch-sight, that inherited ability to sense the manifestations of magic, made him aware of something in the air, in the very essence of the world, that seemed to concentrate around the Jedi, then spread to cover the skiff, which began to glide smoothly toward the larger vessel.

These men came from far away indeed! Elric could have done the same, but the feat would have required a ritual summoning of lesser water elementals. Obi-Wan had achieved his result with a simple effort of will. Clearly there was more to this 'Jedi Knight' than the exceptional swordsmanship he had demonstrated earlier.

As the skiff came alongside, a figure appeared at the gunwhale of the larger ship in answer to Titus' hail. A rope ladder snaked over the side, and as Elric and Obi-Wan climbed up, other cables were lowered which Titus made fast to the prow and stern of the skiff before swarming up the ladder with a speed and agility that belied his armoured bulk. The figure on deck was revealed to be a woman, tall and dark with strong, handsome features. She was dressed in tight trousers of some blue cloth and a white sleeveless shirt. One arm was in a sling, but the other was more muscled than that of any other woman Elric had seen, and she operated the windlass that raised the skiff with an ease that demonstrated formidable strength.

"This is Mira," Titus told Elric, dropping a familiar arm across her shoulders, "my crew. We'd best be getting under way."

With that, he led them, not to the main deck, but to the cabin. Elric barely had time to be astonished at the great, glittering interior before his eyes misted over, the world spun and his strength drained from him like water. _Stormbringer_, which usually hung as lightly as any other blade, suddenly resumed its proper weight, dragging him off-balance. He would have fallen had Titus not grabbed him and lowered him gently to the floor.

Elric recognised what was happening to him. His particular form of albinism would normally render him weak and languid, barely able to move. As a young Prince, and later King, he had had access to sophisticated drugs and potions brewed by skilled alchemists which had made up for this deficiency. Later, he had become entirely dependent on the sorcerous strength supplied by his runesword. But now, for some reason, _Stormbringer_ had become unable or unwilling to give him the strength he needed.

"Mira!" Titus barked. The woman hurried over to a chest in one corner of this impossibly large chamber, lifting the lid and rummaging inside.

"I won't die," Elric managed to murmur, "I just need..."

"I know." Titus told him. "But it doesn't suit either of us to have you lying around the TARDIS like a wet rag!"

Then Mira was bending over him with an odd-looking device in her hand.

"Hold still." She ordered in a voice clearly accustomed to command. Then she pressed the device to the vein in Eric's neck. There was a hiss, and a sensation like the sting of driving rain, then Elrics' vision cleared and energy began to flow through him. He made to struggle up, but Mira put a hand on his chest and forced him gently back down.

"Just stay put for a minute." She advised. "That shot is a quick fix, but you need to let it take full effect before you start bumbling about. Later, I'll give you some pills that work slower, but better."

"I don't understand." Elric said, as his mind cleared. "If this is a trap, why give me drugs? If it isn't a trap, why didn't you warn me?"

Mira looked up a Titus, who spread his hands apologetically. "I didn't realise what would happen." He explained. "When I researched you, I learned that you depended on that sword, but I also learned that the Black Sword is a powerful artefact in any part of the Multiverse. But it seems that the TARDIS – this vessel – is either outside or between the Multiverse proper. _Stormbringer_ is no more than an ordinary blade in here, Sir Elric."

"That explains," put in Obi-Wan, who had so far said little, "Why my connection to the Force is muted in here. I am getting nothing beyond what all of us here generate."

"What is this 'Force'?" Elric asked.

"Never mind." Titus said firmly from the hexagonal console in the middle of the room. A whirring sound began and he turned toward them.

"There will be time to discuss these things later. We are on our way to pick up our next recruit, and it may not be easy. This man is a warrior without peer, but takes little account of courtesy, rank or culture. He is a barbarian, but no fool. Take care how you deal with him."


	2. Chapter 2

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**Two**

_Elis, Greece, c1500 BCE_

Kratos' lip curled. The cluster of buildings around the shrine was dark and empty. The devotees of Athena who dwelt here had stayed despite the undead Servitors, the Harpies and Minotaurs that Ares had sent, but the mere whisper that the Ghost of Sparta was on his way was enough to send them fleeing to the woods and caves. _Cowards!_ He thought. But so be it, he was accustomed to battling alone, and at least there would be no foolish civilians underfoot.

Athena herself had sent him here, to this, one of her most favoured shrines. Kratos had accepted the quest eagerly, since Ares was the aggressor. His blood-feud with the increasingly unstable God of War was perhaps the only thing that prevented him from taking his own life. That, and the eternal hope that the other Gods would eventually grant his wish, and cleanse his mind of tormenting memories.

Kratos had come with the dawn, and as he strode forward, his blocky form cast a long shadow before him. There was a broad path leading to the centre of the little settlement that was already in ruins, the houses broken or burned. Corpses littered the area – peasants in rough clothes, priests in robes and many armed warriors. Athenians, judging by their gear; skilled and disciplined soldiers, but lacking the raw ferocity and indifference to pain and death that characterised the Spartans.

The shrine still stood in the square at the centre of the town. The statue of the Goddess still guarded its portal, aglow with Athena's will and power. But with her worshippers fled, that power would soon fade, and if the image fell, the temple would be next. Kratos went forward and set himself before the image.

He did not wait long. They came quickly along the path they had made: grey-skinned undead soldiers in rotting armour, towering, axe-wielding Minotaurs, a massive, lumbering Cyclops. The air filled with the shrieks of Harpies. They entered the square and halted, quivering like leashed hounds. Kratos felt the will of their God holding them back, trying to teach him fear, but it was much too late for that.

"Ares!" He bellowed. "Coward! Come and face me yourself!"

The god's voice was sardonic in his mind. _I do not waste my time with mortals, Ghost of Sparta. Remember, I made you, and I reserve the privilege of watching as my minions put an end to your treachery and insolence._

"Let them come!" Kratos growled. "None of them will see the sun set this day!"

The horde charged in a cacophony of sound, the clash of armour, the roars of the Minotaurs and the ever-present scream of the winged she-demons. Kratos unlimbered the heavy, axe-like blades that hung at his back. They flared with red fire, and the Spartan allowed himself a grim smile at the irony of slaying Ares' servants with the very Blades of Chaos that the war-God had gifted him so long ago.

He fought as he had fought a thousand times before, the heavy blades swinging out at the end of the chains that secured them to his forearms. They sliced through flesh and armour with ease, and burned as they cut. Undead soldiers went down by the dozens, but the other creatures held back. Ares was playing a clever game, seeking to wear Kratos down with lesser foes before unleashing the more powerful minions upon him. Well, it would either work or it wouldn't. A Spartan succeeded or died, and Kratos didn't care which happened to him.

Then the battle changed. It began with a Minotaur giving a terrible scream of pain and rage. The fight paused as even the undead soldiers turned to look. The Minotaur stood rigid, its' head thrown back, and two feet of black blade protruding from its' chest. Then the blade wrenched, splitting the beast open and letting it fall. The slayer emerged from behind it, a tall, slender figure clad in black, with a bone-white, not entirely human, face and flowing white hair. The face was stretched in a fearsome grin, the crimson eyes glowing with battle-fury. He wielded a great, black, two-handed sword that looked too heavy for his slender arms. The blade was crooning, and black light spilled out of it as the white-skinned warrior hurled himself into the fray.

This unexpected intervention had clearly thrown Ares' plan into disarray and he responded with rage, goading all his minions at once into the fight. It became clear that the albino stranger was easily Kratos' match in ferocity, and his sword was even more powerful than the Spartans' blades. What the black blade touched, died, and the more he slew, the more strength the stranger seemed to gain.

Even so, the odds were still terrible, until another warrior arrived, leaping from the roof of a half-wrecked building into the heart of the fight. He also wore black, a lithe, well-knit man with brown hair and a neat beard. Not as strong as the other two, he was fast and agile, wielding a straight blue-white blade that seemed to be made of pure light and cut through anything in a single sweep. At the same moment there was a sound like thunder, and dead Harpies began to rain down onto the battlefield. Kratos risked a glance around to see a giant figure standing atop the temples' portico, aiming some kind of weapon that spat fire, tearing the swooping demons to shreds before they could touch him.

Now the servants of Ares were falling rapidly, and the God of War made his last move. With an earth-shattering roar, the Cyclops lumbered forward, raising its' huge club. The agile warrior with the sword of light was directly in the beast's path, and neither Kratos nor the black sword warrior would be able to reach him in time.

Then the impossible happened. The warrior lowered his blade, and raised a hand. From a nearby ruin, a heavy beam lifted and floated toward him. One end had been broken off, leaving a spear-like point. As Kratos watched, astonished, the beam came to hang between the warrior and the Cyclops, the pointed end toward the beast. With a quick gesture, the warrior sent the beam flying forward swiftly as an arrow, so that the pointed end punched through the Cyclops chest. The one-eyed giant pitched forward, impaling itself more deeply on the beam, its' mouth opened to spew black blood, and it died.

There was little more to do after that. The last of the Harpies had fallen, and the giant on the roof turned his thunder-weapon on the ground troops, spreading ruin among them so quickly that the three swordsmen had no need to do more than mop up stragglers.

At last it was done, and by unspoken agreement the warriors made their way toward the statue of Athena.

"Who are you?" Kratos demanded bluntly.

The bearded man did something to his weapon, and the blade vanished like a snuffed-out candle. He hung the handle on his belt and sketched a bow to the Spartan.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight," he introduced himself, "and a 'thank you' might have been nice, Captain Kratos."

"Thanks can wait until I know who you are and what you want." Kratos growled. "You know who I am, but I do not know you. Were you also sent by the Gods?"

It was the albino who replied. "My companions do not, I think, have any truck with gods, Sir Kratos. As for me, I deal with gods far different than those of your world. I am Elric of Melnibone, and if my theories are correct, this world has long since forgotten me and my people."

The giant had leaped down from the temple, and now addressed Kratos. The Spartan noted that he was at least a foot taller than any man he had ever seen, and was clad in blue armour, edged with gold, that made an odd whirring sound whenever he moved.

"My name is Captain Titus, and my comrades and I need your aid, Kratos of Sparta."

Kratos considered. There were many who considered the Ghost of Sparta to be a dim-witted killing machine, an unthinking berserker who lived only for battle. They were wrong. Kratos had been a Captain in the Army of Sparta, and such men required more than mere strength of arm. Few would credit it, but Kratos had been educated in tactics and strategy, and was learned in the classic poetry of Athens, the great tales of heroic deeds. More importantly, a Spartan Captain needed to be able to measure men at a glance, to tell a coward from a brave man, an honest one from a liar or braggart, a warrior from a soldier.

The albino Elric was a warrior, he decided, a gifted amateur who fought because he wished to, or for a cause, or for gain or honour. The Jedi – whatever a Jedi might be – was something different, having the air of both a soldier and a priest about him. Kratos had known soldier-priests and respected them, in his way; they fought only when their ideals permitted them to, but when they did so, they remained true to the end, and feared nothing. Titus was a soldier, with the carriage of a professional fighter; his scars marked him a veteran, and the spotless condition of his obviously ancient armour as one who had been through military training. What did such men want with a feared killer?

Then the statue of Athena spoke:

"Kratos, these men are on no quest for us. Their purposes are their own. There will be no gain for you in this, be warned!"

Before anyone could answer another voice floated to their ears. An insinuating tenor, full of old and joyous evil.

"Beware, little cousin!" It said. "I have permitted my own devotee to join this endeavour. Has your arrogance grown so, Child of Law, that you will refuse where I have allowed?"

"I did not ask your permission, Arioch." Elric said coldly. "We have a bargain, it is true, but your part of it has not been well-kept thus far."

Athena also replied. "Have a care, Old One! This is not your world, and you have no power here save your voice."

"Enough!" Snapped Kenobi. Both god-voices fell silent, and the glow of Athena's statue seemed to flicker. "This is for Kratos to decide, and I for one will not permit interference!"

It was that which decided Kratos. He turned to Titus. "I'm with you." He rumbled, "I've had enough of gods and their quests for now. I wish once more to fight beside mortals, for the sake of mortals. There's much I would forget in my life, but there are some things I wish to remember, and the fellowship of men in battle is one of them."

_The Castineau Farm, Normandy, 1817 CE_

Lucille Castineau paused on her way to the field, to watch her man work. Stripped to the waist in the late summer sunshine, he looked magnificent to her as he finished mowing the last field. A couple of young boys, borrowed from nearby farms, were completing the haycocks and Lucille was carrying a midday meal for all of them. They would sit in a shady corner of the field and Richard would entertain the boys with tall tales of his adventures in the war.

That had been a worry – how her French neighbours would react to the presence of an English soldier among them. But it had proved needless, the tall dark man with the scarred face inspired respect simply by his appearance. His French was fluent, especially when it came to swearing, and his capacity for hard work and the local cider soon won him acceptance.

"I've had to work for everything I've ever had." He once told her. "So a farm is just another job, Lucille."

Still, she was grateful to the Duke of Wellington, who, as the victor of Waterloo, had managed to make Richard's field promotion stick this time. The pension and prize-money of a Lieutenant Colonel went a long way towards making the farm a working proposition again. Then he spotted her and hailed her cheerily. Lucille shook herself and carried on into the field with her basket.

Later that evening, as she prepared a simple supper of bread and cheese, Lucille watched him from the kitchen window as he sat on the back porch smoking a cigarillo. This time her thoughts were different. There was no doubt Richard loved her as she loved him, and that he was happy here, but there was a restlessness about him lately. He had been a soldier most of his life, after all, and unused to staying in one place for too long. Something would call him away, soon, she knew. But she also knew he would come back to her.

Sharpe's instincts remained as keen as ever, and he knew that the four men who appeared out of the woods in the twilight were dangerous. But he also knew they meant him no harm – their approach was too open, too relaxed. He sized them up, one by one.

A well-knit man with sandy hair and beard, wearing a simple black uniform and moving with a quiet assurance that impressed Sharpe more than his rather ordinary appearance. He carried no weapons that Sharpe could see, but nonetheless gave the impression of being armed.

Another man of average height, but very thickset, with muscular arms, legs like tree-trunks and a bull's neck. This man had a shaved head, a straggly beard and intense dark eyes in a scarred, brutal face. His skin was ashen white, but marked with a spiral red tattoo that began over his heart and ended on his cheek. He wore a simple leather kilt, sandals with thongs that reached to his knees and gauntlets that covered his forearms. He had two nasty-looking blades slung at his back.

The next man also had white skin and his features were odd, a long skull and jaw, with slanted scarlet eyes and a pointed chin. He was as tall as Sharpe, but more slender. Sharpe had encountered albinos before, in the travelling shows that came to the village, but this man was different. He was not clothed in ragged motley, but in black britches and shirt, with a black leather jerkin and boots, and a long black cloak with a crimson lining. A massive broadsword hung at his side and he carried himself with an unconscious arrogance Sharpe had only seen before in royalty.

The last man was a true giant. Sergeant Harper was the biggest, strongest man Sharpe had ever met, but this fellow would have dwarfed Patrick, standing more than seven feet tall, and built to match. He wore a blue uniform with a good deal of gold braid, but the skull and Omega badges didn't belong to any regiment Sharpe knew of.

It was the giant who spoke: "Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Sharpe, of the Prince of Wales' Own?"

"That's me. And you are?"

"Captain Titus, Second Company, Ultramarines. My colleagues and I would like to speak with you, Colonel."

You could tell a lot about a man, Sharpe thought, by the way he ate. Soldiers ate in one of two ways, either bolting the food down on the move, or relaxing and relishing every morsel. Three of these men, then, were soldiers. Titus, Obi-Wan and Kratos applied themselves to Lucilles' home-baked bread and local cheese with every evidence of simple enjoyment. The tall albino, Elric, was different. Sharpe could tell the man was an aristocrat by his manner and his speech, and the delicate manner in which he ate confirmed that. But unlike some 'gentlemen' Sharpe had known, he didn't turn his nose up at the plain fare. Instead he seemed to savour it as much as he might any spiced and princely banquet. Indeed, his eyebrows had shot up in approval at his first sip of the local wine Lucille served.

After they had all taken the edge off their appetites, Titus came to the point, explaining what he needed. Sharpe listened, then said:

"But what are we actually doing?"

"I'll explain the full details to everyone when we have a full team." Titus said. "For now, suffice to say that the task is an honourable one."

"Honour's nice, I suppose," Sharpe pointed out with a wry grin, "But if you know as much about me as you seem to, you'll know I'm no gentleman. I think I'd need something a bit more substantial than honour."

The big Spartan, Kratos, gave a snort of approving laughter, and Elric raised his cup to Sharpe in a silent toast. It wasn't that Sharpe didn't want to go, he'd been feeling restless lately, and been plagued by a feeling that he was losing his edge. Still, there were other considerations. Titus seemed to understand, and produced something from his pocket, placing it on the table in front of him. Whatever the thing was, it produced a cone of light, in the middle of which floated an image Sharpe recognised immediately. It was the large, heart-shaped ruby that had been stolen from him in India many years ago.

"How the bloody Hell did you get hold of that?" He asked.

"We didn't," Titus admitted, "but the people we're working for have it, and will give it to you in return for your help, Colonel."

Sharpe hesitated. They were no longer exactly poor, but the price the ruby would fetch in Paris would make a lot of things very much easier. The Lucille grabbed his arm and whispered urgently in his ear. His eyes widened. "Are you sure?" He asked. She nodded. Sharpe swallowed hard, then said to Titus, "I'm with you."

_Alberta, Canada, c.1987_

The man called Logan stretched and grimaced. The aches and pains were vanishing quickly, as they always did. That was part of the problem, of course. Cage-fighting, between the purse for winning (he always won), and careful side-bets, was reasonably profitable, earning enough for his few needs. But it entailed a lot of moving about. His tactic of allowing the other guy to beat on him until he got bored, then taking him down fast and hard, was good for helping the odds, but it meant getting beaten to a bloody mess every night. Not a problem in itself, but turning up the following night without a mark on him did make people suspicious. Tonight, the bar-owner had asked him outright if he was one of a pair of twins, fighting turn and about!

It was getting toward time to move on. Fortunately, logging season was about to start, so that would give him a few month's regular pay. Then maybe in the winter, he'd head up to Yellowknife. He still had his truckers' license, maybe he'd drive the Winter Road a season?

_Who are you kiddin'?_ He asked himself. Ten years he'd been following the same route – round and round Alkali Lake. This place mattered to him, but he didn't know why. All he had was a blank in his memory, and dreams of pain, fire and blood.

He considered another beer, maybe a bourbon, but he'd been down the booze road before, and it was no help. He went to the window and threw it open. The air was sparkling-cold, but he could smell spring in the wind. That was good. Summer out in the woods, in the logging camps. Clean air with no smells of beer, tobacco and blood-lust, set him up for another winter of run-down bars in one-horse towns.

The whirring sound was a familiar one, but Logan couldn't recall where or when he'd heard it before. All he knew, almost by instinct, was that that sound spelled trouble. _Trouble is my middle name_, he thought. He looked out again, and realised one of the stores opposite had suddenly acquired a new building. Looked like a small, shabby storage shed, but it hadn't been there a few moments ago.

Logan dressed quickly, locked his RV, and made his way, silent as a ghost, to the new building. Quiet as he was, the door swung open as he approached, and a bright light shone out. Silhouetted against the light was a giant figure. A deep voice said: "Colonel Logan, codenamed Wolverine? Your skills are needed."

_Grimmauld Place, London, 2012 CE_

The whirring noise brought Harry and Ginny Potter dashing into the ballroom. They looked about them for the familiar blue box, but saw nothing. Then Ginny said: "Harry, we seem to have acquired a new cabinet..."

Kreacher, his timing always impeccable, appeared out of nowhere and silently handed them their wands. "Keep an eye on the children." Ginny told him, before turning to Harry. "You told me that the Doctor was the only TimeLord left!"

"That's what he told me." Harry replied. "But he also said it was a big Universe..."

The cabinet door opened, and a giant of a man stepped out, stopping short when he saw the two wands levelled at him. He raised his hands.

"I am unarmed, Mr Potter, and mean you no harm."

Harry considered the man carefully. "Unless you've done a really spectacular regeneration, _and_ repaired your TARDIS a bit, you're not the Doctor!" He pointed out.

The visitor grinned: "You know the Doctor?"

"Worked a special job with him last year." Harry told him. "He told me there weren't any other TimeLords left."

The big man shrugged. "I doubt he'd have mentioned me. I'm only half a TimeLord anyway."

Harry lowered his wand a little and nodded. "I got the impression that the Doctor isn't a man who tells everybody everything. _Talks_ a lot, but doesn't _say_ any more than he needs to!"

Ginny, typically, got straight to the point. "Who are you and what do you want?" She asked.

"My apologies, Mrs Potter." The stranger inclined his head. "My name is Titus, and I want, or rather need, your husbands' help."

Tersely, Titus explained where and how he had met the Doctor, knowing that this was perhaps the best way to gain Harrys' trust. It worked, both Harry and Ginny nodded.

"That's the Doctor." Harry stated. "I can't think of anyone else who would do just that in just the way he did it!"

"I presume," Ginny said, "that this help you need involves going somewhere to kick somebody's arse?"

Titus nodded. "I'm putting a team together, and I need a wizard. Word is, Harry, that you're the best of the best, so here I am. Interested?"

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm the best..." Harry began, but Ginny cut him short.

"I would, pet, because you are." She stated flatly, then turned to Titus. "What kind of job is it?"

"If you know the Doctor, you'll understand why I can't give too many details here and now." Titus replied. "What I can say is that some poor, good people are under threat from some rather unpleasant types."

"If it's bullying you're talking about, then Harry's up for it." Ginny said immediately.

"Oi! Don't I get a say?" Harry protested.

"No, you don't." She told him. "We didn't go through all that crap with Draco Malfoy – not to mention Voldemort – for you to start letting bullies get away with it, Harry! Titus, bring him back in one piece, or I'll know the reason why!"

Titus and Harry exchanged wry grins.

"Yes, ma'am." Said Titus.

"She Who Must Be Obeyed." Muttered Harry.

Ginny absently cuffed Harry across the back of his head and said to Titus: "That thing's a time machine, right? OK, be back for tea, all of you, including those blokes who're peeking out through the TARDIS door! I'll make extra and you can tell me all about it, and it had better be good!"

As Harry stepped through the TARDIS door, a tall, dark man with a scar on his face grinned at him and said: "With a wife like that, this should be a holiday!"

_The Redoubt, Moon Tanelorn_

The tallish, slender man with dark hair and saturnine features relaxed on the throne-like chair and stroked his neat beard.

"You are sure that the Mercenaries are not here to reinforce the town?" He asked. His voice was silky, but the underlying menace was unmistakable.

The person addressed came closer to the bottom step of the dais. He was grossly, immensely fat, a fact that made his elaborate dark robes, beringed fingers and pomaded hair faintly ridiculous. But the eyes, almost hidden in folds of fat, were dark and cold. He moved with an odd, bouncing gait, and a keen observer would have noticed subtle bulges around his vast waist, hinting at some kind of technological support for his enormous weight. When he spoke, his voice was a rumbling basso.

"I am sure, Master." He spoke the last word with a slight hesitation, a hint of reluctance. "They came to deliver a message, and some goods, which my sources tell me are parts for agricultural machines. True Merc missions are not so frequent that such men do not supplement their income with trade, especially in areas of space outside military control."

"Your sources, then, are reliable?" The Master asked.

"Absolutely." The fat man averred. "It is as I have said, there are always enough people who seek their own advancement in any community. Advancement, or satisfaction of desires. It is necessary only to know those desires to bend them. All intelligent beings have a price. Give me time, Master, and they will hand the town to us."

"Thank you, Baron Harkonnen." The Master waved a negligent hand. "Leave us, I will send for you again when I need your counsel, or have a task for you."

The Baron's brows knit, for a moment he looked as if he might protest, but his eyes flicked to a figure standing beside and slightly behind the throne. A tall, powerfully built, manlike figure clad all in black, with an impassive, black and orange face and unwavering red-gold eyes that now fixed on him. Clearly thinking better of his protest, the Baron inclined his head and withdrew.

"What do you think, Tom?" Asked the Master. "Does the good Baron plot against us?"

"Of course he does." The tenor voice belonged to another tall figure who glided out of the shadows. Thin to the point of emaciation, wrapped in green and silver robes, the man came to the foot of the dais and looked up at the Master. His head was hairless, and his face almost featureless, like a serpents'. His eyes were slit-pupilled, red, and more than a little mad.

"He thinks himself superior to us all." The thin man said. "He believes he should sit where you sit. He conspires with some of our troops, and with dissidents within the town. He plans to let us take the town, then assassinate you and, with the help of his faction, rule this moon himself."

"Quite so. A pig, but a clever and dangerous pig, and for now, a useful pig." The Master concluded. "But what of you, my Lord Voldemort? How does being the follower, even the chief counsellor, of a mere Muggle sit with you?"

The answering laugh was rather too shrill for sanity. "You are no 'mere Muggle', Master." Voldemort replied. "I am perhaps the greatest living Legilimens, and I have seen your mind. I am no match for you, and I am wise enough to settle for the position of ally when the alternative is destruction.

"Besides, you are an immortal, the very status I seek, and have sought for so long. If I serve you well, I may learn that secret from you. We are both too wise, I think, to speak of trust."

The Master smiled, then turned to the other side of the hall. "Your thoughts, First of Twelve?"

The person so addressed was a woman. At least, that part of her which was still recognisably human was female. She seemed to be clad in black, metallic garments, one of her arms ended, not in a hand, but in some kind of metal claw. She was hairless, her skin was grey, and one of her eyes was covered, or replaced, with an insectile compound lens. Her reply was in a level, inflectionless voice.

"The unit designated Baron Harkonnen should be assimilated. He is a threat to our Collective."

"All in good time." The Master admonished. "That shall be your last task, before the Cyberleader over there gives you and your Unimatrix a full upgrade."

The massive silver form standing beside the Borg nodded.

"When we have the town we will have the technology and power to fully upgrade all." The Cyberleader intoned.

"Perfection at last." First of Twelve said, now with some semblance of emotion in her tone.

"That was my promise to you," the Master told her, "and it will be kept. Leave me now, all of you. I must consider our next steps."

They all filed out, save the man with black and orange skin. He stayed beside the Master, unmoving, unspeaking. The Master turned to him. "You trust none of them, do you, my friend?"

Darth Maul shrugged and said nothing. As far as the Master could recall, he had not spoken since giving his name and pledging his allegiance. If the renegade TimeLord trusted anyone, it was this taciturn Sith warrior who had installed himself as personal bodyguard.

"Let no-one enter." He ordered. Darth Maul strode over to the door and stepped through it, closing it behind him. If anyone knew who it was the Master was about to speak with, his entire alliance would crumble in a storm of fear and loathing.

True to its word, his 'employer' appeared moments later. The thing was not physically present, though he knew it could be if it wished. A Dalek. Not a metallic, regimented Imperial Dalek, or a sleek, white, dangerously subtle Advanced Dalek. This was a larger, more menacing, more powerful version, that called itself a 'New Paradigm' Dalek. His TimeLord senses told the Master that the thing came from the future, or one future out of the thousands this uncanny moon swam through. This particular Dalek had an emerald green shell, and spoke in a deep, authoritative voice.

"Are your for-ces rea-dy?"

"My forces?" The Master gave a bark of contemptuous laughter. "I have a dozen Borg, six Cybermen, ten Cylons, fifty assorted outlaws, pirates and mutineers, a mad wizard, a Sith Warrior and a treacherous politician. If you can call these forces, then they are ready, or will be."

"You must at-tack in five days. If your fu-ture is to be se-cured, you must not move be-fore." The Dalek had been very clear on this point since the beginning, but in the way of its kind, it repeated orders given to 'lesser' beings frequently.

"Five days." The Master mused. "That would give my old friend ample time to summon allies of his own."

"Not poss-ible." The Dalek stated flatly. "To leave this moon would re-lease the Time Lock on your ma-chine. He can-not sum-mon help if he wish-es to keep you here."

"How do I know you will keep your end of the bargain?" The Master demanded.

"You do not." The Dalek replied simply. "But we re-quire a TAR-DIS. Yours is Time Locked, his is not. Once our com-mon en-em-y is ex-ter-min-ated, we will take his ship. If you still live, yours will be free. We have no int-er-est in kil-ling you. At this time."

That last sentence was ominous, the Master thought, but the Dalek vanished as soon as it had spoken.


	3. Chapter 3

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**Three**

_The Vortex_

Mira studied the men Titus had gathered, both as an officer and as a woman looking out for her man. Not that many or any of these individuals offered a serious threat to an _Adeptus Astartes, _but they would, perforce, be his battle brothers in any upcoming fight. How far could they be trusted or relied upon?

Some were easy to assess. Kenobi, the Jedi Knight, was honourable and an idealist. The nature of the mission, and his own given word, would make him reliable to the end. He was affable and good-natured, but not garrulous or unduly confiding.

Much of the same applied to the young wizard, Potter. Approachable and charming in his polite English way, there was nevertheless a quiet strength about him. Mira did not understand his abilities which, as a former soldier of the Imperium, smacked to her of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers. But Potter's evident sanity and honesty gave the lie to that.

Colonel Sharpe reminded her of a Cadian officer. A professional with a streak of steel in him that went deeper than his surface friendliness. Even as he talked, he measured the men he spoke to. Mira guessed he was engaged about the same business she was. A born leader and not a man to cross, even by the standards of Mira's own war-torn century.

The Spartan, Kratos, was an almost primal warrior. Born in Mira's time, he would most certainly have been selected for a Space Marine Chapter. He spoke rarely, except to ask a direct question or make a flat statement, but his taciturnity did not speak to a limited mind. What gave Mira concern was the permanent rage that burned behind his dark eyes. That rage promised a ruthlessness and brutality that might well extend to allies as well as enemies.

It was tempting to mark the Canadian Mutant, Logan, down as another Kratos. But Mira quickly realised that this would be a mistake. However ferocious he might be in battle, the man called Wolverine kept his anger contained within a steely will and an iron-clad code of personal honour that gave the lie to his surface cynicism. At his core, Logan was compassionate in a way the Spartan could not be.

Most enigmatic of all was the tall albino, Elric. In Mira's eyes, he was a Xeno, bearing a disturbing resemblance to the Dark Eldar in his appearance and manner. He kept apart from the others, not sharing the camaraderie of old campaigners in which even the Spartan could join. At first, Mira thought this a part of the cool arrogance the man wore like a cloak. But then she caught him at a moment when he thought himself unobserved and let his pretence drop. All she saw then was sadness, a man blindly moving through life seeking only a moment's relief from the memory of tragedy. A deep, personal misery.

Titus was taking note of the commonalities and differences that were going to affect the dynamics of the group. Harry Potter and Logan shared certain experiences and knowledge, by virtue of being near-contemporaries, but the young Auror was still from a period over twenty years later than the rugged Canadian, and much had changed in that short time.

On the other hand, though separated by a vast gulf of time and space, Harry, Elric and Obi-Wan had much in common. All three were fighters, but war had been, in a sense, forced on them all, and they were primarily students of arcane knowledge outside the experience of the others. Their skills were different, certainly. Elric was dependent on ancient bargains and rituals, and the possession of certain artefacts, including his runesword and the Actorios ring he wore. Harry, on the other hand, used a simpler but ultimately less powerful version, leaning largely on spoken spells focused through the wand he carried. Obi-Wan's direct manipulation of the energy he called 'the Force' was at once more flexible than either and potentially more powerful than both, but required a more intense self-discipline and a constant vigilance for what he referred to as 'the Dark Side'. As Titus had hoped, Elric's wall of solitude was overcome by his curiosity – the man was simply too intelligent not to be inquisitive - and what had begun as an exchange of knowledge was developing into a bond between different but equal practitioners of a common art.

Titus himself felt more comfortable with the other three, all of whom were military men to the core. Like Mira, he recognised in Kratos a man who, in the 41st Millennium, would have been a Space Marine. Not an Ultramarine, or a Blood Angel, more likely Space Wolf or White Scar. Like most Space Marines, Titus had an extensive knowledge of the almost mythical military history of Holy Terra (or simply Earth, as he was coming to think of it), and the records of his inherited TARDIS had added solid facts to the legends. He knew of the harsh regime under which Spartans were reared, and how it produced some of the finest, most disciplined and most savage warriors in history. Kratos was in many ways the ultimate Spartan soldier; implacable, fearless, clever and careless of both personal risk and pain. The man's boiling anger was at once his greatest strength and his most dangerous weakness, but the fact that it had not driven him mad spoke volumes for his strength of character and will.

Mira was also correct in her assessment of Sharpe. The Rifleman would have made a fine officer in a Cadian Shock Regiment. A hard man, and not to be taken lightly, one who had risen from the lowest of enlisted ranks to near the top of command at a time when promotion often had more to do with wealth and birth than merit. Sharpe knew and lived both the code of the trooper – never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, and if you can lie down, go to sleep – and the priorities of a good officer – first do the job, second look after your men, and only third worry about your career. This was a Colonel who would lead from the front, and play any dirty trick in battle that would bring more of his men home alive. Titus liked him.

Wolverine, on the other hand, had more in common with the Catachan Jungle Fighters Titus had known. Tough, stealthy, fierce and with a preference for close combat and bladed weapons, the Canadian's skillset was formidable enough without his enhanced Mutant abilities and the armoured skeleton the Tech-Priests of his world had given him. His experiences, though largely lost through induced amnesia, had left him with a lingering distrust of authority and politics. This was something which the old Titus, the unquestioningly loyal Ultramarine, would have been disturbed about. The new Titus, halfblood TimeLord and wandering troubleshooter, had begun to develop a healthy cynicism about governments and politicians himself. But Logan also retained fugitive memories of being, in his words, "always the last man standing", which made him cagey about getting too close to any member of a team.

A motley crew, then, and one which might never grow into a group of close comrades or friends. But as allies, they would each bring something unique and useful to the team. Titus had given them enough time, he thought, and set the controls for Tanelorn.

_Assault Frigate "Fruit of Betrayal", en route for Tanelorn._

Captain Leandros sat on his throne-like Command Chair in the centre of the bridge, surrounded by naked slave girls of several colours and at least four different shapes. Not that Leandros had, personally, any interest in women, naked or otherwise, except perhaps an aesthetic one. But the girls were a useful distraction in negotiations and a handy, cheap morale-booster for his crew of Mutants, Xenos, misfits and monsters. Occasionally one or two of them died or were irretrievably damaged while being used in this way, but there were plenty of worlds where they could be replaced inexpensively.

Sex, drugs, money and fear, Leandros had discovered, were useful means to manipulate many species. Blunt tools perhaps, but effective. However, the person he was currently negotiating with was not so easily distracted.

Piter de Vries was a short, slender and rather effeminate-looking man with delicate features and the blue-on-blue eyes of a melange addict. Leandros knew him by reputation; a sadist, a killer, but primarily a Mentat, a human trained to process information like a computer. Dangerous enough, but only a puppet, a marionette whose strings were held by a consummate politician and conspirator, Siridar Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

But the real threat, the only one Leandros respected, was represented by the two tall men who flanked de Vries. The uniforms were Harkonnen, but the men's stance, their combination of alertness, caution and invulnerable arrogance, marked them out as Imperial Sardaukar. Leandros was, or had been, an Ultramarine, so not even the dreaded soldier-fanatics were a match for him. But he did not know how many such soldiers Harkonnen commanded, and even a handful could wreak havoc among Leandros' rag-tag crew.

"Again, de Vries, why do you need us? You have these men." He indicated the Sardaukar.

De Vries sighed, his impatience clear and finely calculated. "Your distrust is misplaced, Captain Leandros. These are the Baron's bodyguards, to use them for this would be to undermine the entire plan.

"It is a simple enough task, Captain. You attack the town, kill a few shopkeepers, burn a few buildings. The Baron's men arrive, make a show of force, you retreat, the grateful townsfolk elect the Baron as their leader. And you, Captain, become a very wealthy man."

Leandros leaned forward with a pretence of eagerness. "The town is wealthy, then?"

The Mentat shrugged. "There are vast deposits of gold and gems close to the town, which the Baron wishes to mine. But clearly this will take several years to produce a profit. You, Captain, will be paid in a more immediate fashion. The Baron has authorised me to promise you a tonne of pure, undiluted melange for the completion of your task."

"That will be more than sufficient." Leandros agreed. "Very well, de Vries, we will make our strike at the time and place agreed."

After the Mentat had left, Leandros held a private conference with his two lieutenants. Brakt, a grizzled old Starwolf who was the ships' tactical officer, looked shrewdly at his Captain.

"A gramme of Dune-spice is enough to make a man wealthy for life on almost any world in the Galaxy." He growled. "This Baron is offering us a tonne of the stuff, to raid one small town on an obscure moon. So, we ask, why? What is there that is worth a tonne of spice to this Harkonnen?

"Gold and gems? A whole planet's worth of such toys might not buy a kilo of spice! Depend upon it, Captain, there is something else there!"

The other figure at the table leaned forward. He was a hulking Xindi Reptilian named Colonel Traag, who commanded the fifty-strong force of Xindi Reptilians and Insectoids that formed Leandros' boarding and assault troops.

"I think I know what it might be." He rumbled. "The human de Vries told us that our energy weapons would not work on Tanelorn, only projectile or hand-to-hand ones. He claimed it was because of the moon's magnetic field.

"But before the Xindi abandoned their war on Earth, the Arboreal scientists were attempting to develop a weapon that would do the very same thing. Is it possible that such a device exists on Tanelorn?"

Leandros nodded. "Brakt, scan the moon most carefully, pinpoint any sources of unusual energy. It may be that if we move swiftly, we can secure this device and escape before the Baron can stop us. Traag, deploy your men carefully, be sure that you have lines of swift retreat available. I do not trust this Baron, he may wish to achieve his ends and retain his spice as well. If we are dead, he need not pay us."

Left alone, Leandros turned to other thoughts, bitter thoughts. He had had high hopes of his career in the Ultramarines. He had lived and breathed the _Codex Astartes_, basing his every action on its precepts. Then he had seen Captain Titus flout those precepts at every turn. Oh, he had claimed that he was following the spirit of the _Codex_, but that was a shallow excuse at best. The _Codex_ had been written by Roboute Guilliman himself, the Primarch of the Ultramarines. It was, and should be, absolute law.

It came as no surprise to Leandros that Titus carried the taint of Chaos. Nothing else could explain his disregard of the _Codex_. It had been with a sense of relief and an expectation of honour that Leandros had reported his former captain to the Inquisition. His reward had been to be curtly ordered off Graia by the thievish Blood Ravens and bundled back to Macragge. Here, at least, Leandros knew that his actions would be praised, and the captaincy of his Company would be within his grasp. But instead, he saw the Second Company given to Captain Sicarius, and found himself ignored, cast out even as he walked among his battle-brothers. The valiant deaths of Titus and Mira in battle against the Necrons only made matters worse. The Chaos-tainted traitor was now a hero of the Chapter.

As far as Leandros was concerned, the Chapter was tainted, and there was no honour in the Universe. On the very next mission, he had flung himself into a Chaos Portal, looking only for death. Instead, he had arrived on a ship full of Xenos. He had begun killing at once – all Xenos were enemies – and had not stopped until he was the last man standing. Then, and only then, had he begun to explore the ship. He examined the memory banks, listened to transmissions, and found how far he had travelled. Wherever he was now, he was far from the Imperium, in a Galaxy without order, split between dozens of competing cultures.

Then and there, Leandros had abandoned the _Codex_, the Chapter, the Emperor and everything he had been or might have become. He flew the ship to a nearby world and sold it. He used the money he made to purchase this ship, and to have an artisan recolour his blue armour in dead black, without badge or insignia. He named the vessel _Fruit of Betrayal_, to remind himself of why he was doing this. He hired a rag-tag crew of Xenos, Mutants, cyborgs and cut-throats, and took to the life of a pirate, raiding vessels and colony planets. Occasionally, he varied this by hiring himself out for jobs no legitimate Merc would take. His only joy now was in dealing out death and destruction to lesser mortals.

So he would raid this Tanelorn, he would play this Baron's game. If he could seize the weapon the Baron sought, he would do so. Whatever happened, when the Baron betrayed him, as he would, Leandros would extract the price of that betrayal in blood and pain.

"It is as I predicted, my Baron," Piter was saying, "This pirate is driven only by greed. The promise of spice was enough to dispel any doubts he might have."

"What kind of man is he, this Captain Leandros?" The Baron asked. "Might he be of further use to us, Piter?"

The Mentat gave a short laugh. "He is a hulking giant, Sire, some ill-tempered farm-boy from a Heavy world out on the Rim. He thinks to impress his men and others by wearing black armour and surrounding himself with naked female slaves. He has the mindset of an adolescent, and his advisors are no better. An ageing exiled Starwolf and a Xindi outcast, a Reptilian at that."

"A blunt and brittle tool, then," the Baron rumbled, "to be used once, broken and thrown away. He and his men will terrorise the townsfolk, but the Sardaukar will defeat them easily. By the time our _Master_," he emphasised the word with bitter loathing, "realises what has happened, it will be over. The grateful peasants, encouraged by our agents, will have proclaimed me their leader, their beloved saviour. Behind the town walls, with the Sardaukar to defend them, we will be untouchable!"

"But why concern ourselves, Sire?" Piter wanted to know. "We have a ship and thirty Sardaukar. We could leave this pathetic moon and take ourselves somewhere civilised. We have spice, enough to ensure wealth and influence on the Inner Rim. We could begin again there."

The baron turned from the window and moved across the room with his bouncing gait. "You are a Mentat, Piter." He growled. "You cannot see beyond the constraints of your precious logic. Wealth is only useful for what it can purchase, and we have enough only to buy influence. Influence is not enough, Piter, the quest is for _power!_

"Our few Sardaukar would fall quickly before Cylons, Cybermen and Borg, were it not for one chance. Their vaunted energy weapons will not work here! The renegade TimeLord speaks of this moon's magnetic field, but he lies, Piter, as I would if I were he. There is a device here, somewhere in that town. It is the key to the peasant's continued existence and freedom, or the others would have conquered them long ago, as the strong always prey on the weak.

"That device, Piter, is what we seek. Once we probe its secrets, we will have power. Power to bend the warring cultures of this Galaxy to my will. Power to place myself on an imperial throne. Power to finally and utterly extirpate the Atreides!"

"And if the TimeLord speaks the truth?" Piter asked. "I must consider all possibilities, Sire."

"So you must." Harkonnen acknowledged. "If he speaks the truth, and there is no device, we remain here. But even here, Piter, Baron Harkonnen will be no man's vassal. Even here, if I must remain, I will _rule_!"

With the clarity of his Mentat training, Piter recognised his Baron's madness, and how his own insanity responded to it. One day, he knew, Harkonnen would have him killed. So be it, but the gross beast would die with him. Piter had made his plans long before.

"I am hungry." The Baron remarked.

"I will see to it at once." Piter bowed and left.

Titus had called ahead, so that when the TARDIS materialised in a warehouse near Tanelorn's tiny space port, they were expected. The Vulcan Lavok was there, and Maki the Ewok, as well as a number of other individuals. Lavok explained that these were the Council, a semi-formal body convened to deal with issues that affected all the peaceful peoples of Tanelorn.

They were a pretty mixed bunch, Titus noted, including a Religious Caste Minbari, a Narn, a Centauri, a Ferengi, a couple of Humans, a Drazi and a grizzled, one-eyed Klingon veteran. There was also a tall but delicate-looking mothlike being introduced as "Papillus of the Menoptera", and standing apart from the others, an Encounter-Suited Vorlon who was simply known as 'Kosh'. Titus knew from other such meetings that all Vorlons used the name 'Kosh' in dealings with other races.

Lavok explained that fuller discussions could take place in the Council Hall, but that another matter had arisen. He led them out onto the landing field, which was dominated by a single ship, a modified freighter with the distinctive 'eyebrow' ridge above the bows that marked it as being of Terran construction. The crew of Humans in grey coveralls were busily unloading a number of crates which bore the mundane label "Agri-Components". They were being supervised by two other figures, one a broad-shouldered, heavily-built Human who looked to be a few kilos overweight, the other a towering, furry creature Titus took for a Wookiee at first until he turned and revealed a face more like a dog or a bear than an ape – a Paragaran, then.

The fat man turned to face them, spotted Titus and came over, his alien companion close behind. The Human's moon-face held a pair of shrewd dark eyes, and he spoke in a soft, lisping voice.

"Captain Titus? My name's Bollard, I'm John Dillulos' second-in-command, and this is Gwaath. John and Chane have gone to negotiate our next job, but he asked me to drop some things off." He gestured to the crates. "We've been told about the issues you have with energy weapons here, and we had these lying about from when a buyer couldn't make our price. They're pretty out of date by most standards, but they'll be ideal here. Your Centauri friend, Sevir, suggested the labels. It seems you're being spied on."

Bollard levered one of the crates open and lifted out a weapon. Mira's eyes widened: "An old-style autogun!" She exclaimed. "I haven't seen one of those since Basic Training!"

Bollard grinned at her. "I've got about a hundred here, and enough ammunition for several regiments. No charge, they're just taking up room in the hold. We've also got half-a-dozen 12-gauge tactical shotguns and a couple of crates of shells. No handguns, I'm afraid.

"That do you?"

"It'll be a help," Titus allowed. "Colonel Sharpe, do you think you could train some locals to use these?"

Sharpe gave a rueful laugh. "I'll have to learn how myself, Captain, but if it's a rifle, I can manage!"

The next three days were busy for everyone, with each member of Titus' team leading specific efforts

Sharpe found that the old Klingon, Major Throk, had raised a force of volunteers from the villagers. These included his daughter, Dera, a military-caste Minbari named Tolunn, a few Narn and a rag-tag of others, mostly Human and Drazi. Despite being trained on muzzle-loaders, Sharpe found the clip-loading autoguns easy to manage, and far lighter and more accurate than a Brown Bess or even the Baker Rifle he'd been used to.

He also soon discovered that recruits were recruits, however odd some of them looked - the Minbari and Klingons weren't too bad, but the snakelike Narn and lizardlike Drazi were a little unnerving at first. But they still needed drilling, they made the same silly mistakes. Fortunately, there was a lot of ammunition – Sharpe was acutely aware that the British Army's victories in the Peninsular War had been in large part due to their, then unique, practice of training with live ammunition.

"It's like this, you lot." he told them on the first day, "I can teach you to shoot these things. To load fast and shoot straight. But when the enemy comes from over there," he waved toward the horizon, "that won't matter. You won't be aiming then, there'll be no time for fancy shooting. What matters then won't be how you shoot, but will you _stand_? Because if you stand, if you can hold your line even when your mates are dropping, then they can't win!"

"What about attack?" Asked the Klingon woman. "What of honour, and the glory of combat? You are a warrior, this I see in you, but you do not speak of these things."

"I'm not a warrior, I'm a soldier." Sharpe told her. "If you don't know the difference, ask your father. Where I come from, Miss, there's no glory and precious little honour in battle. All you've got are your weapon and your mates and the hope of a drink at the end of the day.

"If you want to charge out there and attack, go and talk to Captain Kratos. We're here to defend your homes and your families, and that's what we'll do. To the last man, if necessary."

Dera grunted and stalked away, leaving the small park and heading to the even smaller sports ground, where the townsfolk held a variety of games. Here, Kratos had gathered another group of volunteers – those Sharpe had considered too unsteady and aggressive for his defensive force – to form a small shock unit. Dera pushed through a ring of people, in time to see the towns' lone Romulan pull himself to his feet, coughing and spluttering, bow to Kratos, who stood in the centre of the ring, untouched by dust or sweat, and make his way back to the waiting audience. Dera strode up to the Spartan, who looked her up and down, then said.

"I thought you were with Sharpe's group."

Dera sneered. "I was wrong in my judgement of him. He has little fire, no honour and less coura..."

Part-way through that last word, Dera's world went white, then black for a second, then she was lying on her back several feet from Kratos. As her head cleared, she realised she had been sent flying by an open-handed slap she hadn't even seen start! With a roar, she sprang to her feet and charged the Spartan. The next few seconds were fairly hectic, and for Dera a somewhat painful learning experience. Her father had trained her in _moQbara'_, but she was now discovering the shortfall of almost all martial arts systems. They are only ever as good as the person using them, and if your opponent is faster, stronger and meaner than you are, they don't work so well.

Kratos slipped and broke holds, avoided and absorbed blows, and dealt out stinging punishment with apparent ease. Dera had landed several strikes that should have crippled the man, but she realised that, far from being immune to pain, this Human warrior had been trained to ignore it. Kratos allowed her to vent the worst of her spleen -even a Klingon cannot sustain rage for ever – then casually seized her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.

Klingons are a large, heavy-boned, muscular race, even the women, but Kratos held Dera effortlessly a foot off the ground as she struggled and kicked feebly. With no leverage, she could not bring her full strength to bear, and the steely fingers at her throat were slowly cutting off her oxygen. Finally, she realised her struggles were achieving nothing, and relaxed in his grip. Kratos immediately set her down, and she collapsed to her hands and knees, drawing in lungfuls of air.

Kratos allowed her to recover, and climb to her feet, before he spoke. As always, his voice and manner were those of a man making a flat statement of fact, brooking neither argument nor contradiction.

"Richard Sharpe is not like us. We were both born into warrior societies, trained from birth to fight and conquer. For us to do these things requires no true courage, only the discipline of a lifetime. Sharpe was born into a different world, a world of thieves, whores and poor, honest peasants. He had no training, no discipline until he was a grown man. He did not become a soldier willingly, but having done so, he made the best of it.

"When he fights, he fights to survive, and for his comrades, and he does so as well as any Spartan or Klingon. Honour means nothing to him because he has never been treated honourably, or even decently, until recent times. That such a man can become a soldier, and a good one, speaks to more courage than either you or I will ever have or need.

"Now if you wish to join my force, you may do so. But understand, I will tolerate no disrespect for our fellow warriors."

Titus was supervising the building of some hasty fortifications outside the main wall. A maze of stakes, some pits and deadfalls, all designed to break up the formations of advancing troops. The work was being undertaken by a squad of perhaps twenty antlike creatures, who were under the direction of Papillus and two other Menoptera.

"We shared our homeworld of Vortis with the Zarbi." Papillus was explaining in his soft, high-pitched voice. "They are a simple species, gathering food and building nests under the direction of their Queens. But they are prone to manipulation by others, and on several occasions have become a menace. Fortunately, though strong, they are not natural fighters, and we were able to defeat them, with help from others.

"These Zarbi, and their Queen, came to Tanelorn with us, and the Queen, as has become the custom on Vortis, placed her swarm at our direction. They are good workers, but will be of little or no use in battle."

"I think we have the combat side of things in hand, anyway." Titus allowed. He leaned against a large agri-vehicle that stood nearby. According to Papillus, the machine had been there as long as anyone could recall, and was multi-purpose, having integral fittings for ploughing, harrowing and harvesting. They used it on the larger fields. Titus idly brushed away some of the dirt that always accumulated on such machines. He had grown up on an agri-world, and recognised the vehicle type, but the thing bore no identification or serial numbers. Now the patch he had cleared revealed a mark embossed on the door - a stylised face. The symbol was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn't place it.

He shrugged and glanced up at the walls. Above the gate, Elric and Harry were engaged about something that caused odd shimmers in the air, strange gusts of what felt like wind and occasional showers of sparks.

Elric had used his strange ring to etch odd-looking symbols on the stone, and was now swaying and chanting in an odd, vowel-heavy tongue. Harry was not sure quite what the albino was up to, but it set his wizard senses buzzing, and occasionally caused a tingling in his almost-forgotten scar. What Elric was doing struck him as being dangerously close to the Dark Arts he had spent his life fighting. He reminded himself sharply that the Melnibonean came from a different time and place, and that standards of good and evil might well be different there. Harry had no business judging.

For his own part, he couldn't set up any kind of barrier that would completely stop an attack, especially by Muggles, but he did what he could. Confundus and Mazing charms would hopefully disorient approaching attackers and throw any strategy off.

Eventually, Elric stopped chanting and opened his eyes. "Done!" He announced. "I have roused some of the lesser Earth elementals. Enemies advancing will find the ground somewhat treacherous now." He looked out over the land. "I see you have not been idle, Sir Auror. Without witch-sight, anyone coming here will not find the way easy or obvious.

"We can do no more here, we should seek out the Jedi and add our skill to his in preparing the shelters for the children and wounded."

It turned out that Obi-Wan already had some help. Solann, the Religious Caste Minbari, was an adept at some rather unusual skills. She was, in fact, what Harry would have called a witch, though she had not had the formal training he had – there was no equivalent to Hogwarts on Minbar. Instead her parents and grandparents had passed on techniques they had learned and left her to develop them some more. Between what she could do herself, and Obi-Wan's ability to stabilise her work by calling the Force into play, they had already constructed a place of safety that was not only near-impenetrable, but almost impossible to find. Still, the two were glad for Harry and Elric to cast a professional eye over their work and approve it.

"Of course," Obi-Wan admitted, "it isn't perfect. Somebody looking really hard can find it, and a truly determined assault could breach it. We just have to hope for the best."

"I will do my best to hold things together." Solann promised. "But alone, I can do only so much."

"You will not be alone." This was a new voice. Deep, inflectionless, and accompanied by a kind of whispering sussuration. The group turned to confront the looming figure of the Vorlon, Kosh. "I will be here." He said, then turned and left.

"Two sentences this month." Remarked Solann. "Talkative, for a Vorlon."

"Will he be much help?" Harry asked.

Solann shrugged. "I cannot say for sure. It would be unwise to underestimate Kosh. The Vorlons are one of the oldest and most powerful races in the Galaxy. Some of my people suspect they know more abut science, sorcery and just about everything else than all the other races put together."

"Except the TimeLords." Harry pointed out.

"The TimeLords are a myth!" Solann told him.

"If you say so." Harry replied. "But then, so are Wizards, and here I am!"

"Unless we're imagining you." Obi-Wan countered.

"Our imaginations could not be so twisted." Elric pointed out drily, then turned more serious. "Sir Obi-Wan, if this moon does not permit the use of what are called energy weapons, can your blade function here?"

For answer, Obi-Wan triggered his lightsabre on, then off. "The short answer is yes, King Elric. The power-cell in a lightsabre is not a conventional one. It draws directly on the Force itself, and cannot be suppressed by any magnetic field anomaly."

"Which just leaves us wondering," Harry said, "what Logan is up to?"

"Dirty tricks, I imagine." Obi-Wan replied. "Better not to ask!"

Logan had in fact gathered a group of very specific people. Most of the local Ewoks, some Humans and Narn who preferred hunting to farming, and three others. These others were Sevir Bolatto, the Centauri who acted as the town's only banker, Gor, the leader of the Ferengi community, and the town's tailor, an ageing but hale Cardassian named Elim Garak.

"Reconnaissance, like always, is the key." Logan was saying. "Ya gotta know what the other guy's doin'. Preferably before he does." He turned to the Ewoks and hunters. "Now, outside your farmlands, most of this moon is forest with mountains sticking up out of it. You guys know the forest round here like the backs of your hands, so I need you out there. You need to keep an eye on things, let us know when the bad guys are comin'.

"More important, I need you to take out any scouts the enemy has. You can confuse 'em or kill'em, whichever works best, but I don't want them gettin' too close. The wizards reckon they're hidin' everything, but I don't wanna chance it.

"Our biggest problem is communications. Any ideas?"

Maki the Ewok shook a bag he was carrying. "We have a stock of old-style StarFleet communicators. We give them to the outlying farmers, so that they can keep in touch, warn us about forest fires in the dry season, or floods during the rains. When the trouble started, they all came into town, so we've collected up the communicators, I've got them here." He handed one to Logan, who nodded.

"OK. I want you guys to get out there and start markin' out quadrants. Don't give anyone too big an area to cover, and work in pairs so you can get some shut-eye. Check-in every eight hours, unless somethin' comes up. Radio silence otherwise. Get goin'."

As the scouts left, Logan turned to the others. "Brief me in."

Gor, the Ferengi, spoke first. "Two seasons ago, I and my compatriots were approached privately by a Human named Piter de Vries. He gave us a speech about how the socialistic society the Council had set up was oppressing us, not allowing us to live properly by the Rules of Acquisition." Gor gave a short laugh. "He obviously knows something about Ferengi culture. What he didn't know, of course, is that the Ferengi here on Tanelorn are here because we don't _want_ to live by the Rules!

"But we heard him out. He told us that the Master - as they call their leader – would give us full rights to make all the profit we could, once he was in charge, and if we would support him. All he asked was that we use our influence to sway the people and the Council to surrender.

"We went to the Council straight away, and that's when Sevir got involved."

The Centauri nodded. "I had also been approached by this Piter, but for a different purpose. He told me that he spoke for a man named Baron Harkonnen. He painted this Baron as a benevolent fellow, who would protect us from the Master and his barbaric henchmen. All I had to do was to quietly gather influential members of our society and persuade them that our only route to safety was to invite the Baron to be Head of the Council.

"However, before I came here, I was one of the greatest bankers of the Centauri Republic. I had had dealings with CHOAM, and knew the reputation of this Baron Harkonnen. I pretended interest in this Piter's proposal, but privately contacted both the Council, and my good friend Elim."

"And I," Garak went on, "as a former member of the Obsidian Order, knew a good deal more abut this Piter de Vries! Spymaster, Mentat, assassin, a dangerous man.

"So with the help of Sevir and Gor, I set up a counter-espionage unit. My suspicions were correct, de Vries had set up a network of spies and informants in the town. He had in fact set up two. One for the purposes of the so-called Master, another exclusively for Harkonnen.

"Both of these networks are now compromised. Most of the agents have been turned, the rest are under surveillance and being fed disinformation."

"So, how long before they find out that we're here?" Logan asked.

Garak shrugged. "Impossible to say. Not yet, though. De Vries conducts his business by personal contact. We watch his comings and goings, and he has not been here for some days. It is, however, only a matter of time."

"OK, then we use it." Wolverine gave a grin that made even Garak shudder a little. "Next time this Piter turns up, I'll be there to welcome him. Personally!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**Four**

_Home of Sevir Bolatto, Moon Tanelorn_

There was a certain comfort, Sevir thought, in having a large and sturdy desk between himself and the man he was talking to. There was something disturbing about Piter de Vries. The masklike face, so devoid of expression, its inhumanity only accentuated by the blue-on-blue eyes, was one thing. But Sevir had done business with Vulcans, so this alone wasn't the problem. It was the sense that he was being treated as a simple datum – just one more piece of information to be processed by the Mentat opposite. Even the most rigidly logical of Vulcans never failed to acknowledge that a person was a person, a living, sentient being. That fact, though, seemed irrelevant to Piter.

"I have come to give you a warning, Sevir." Piter said, his attempt at a concerned tone falling far short of sincerity. "My Baron's sources tell him that, the day after tomorrow, your town will be raided by pirates. This information is given to you to use as you see fit, Sevir. You may warn your people, or use the time to make your own property safe.

"However, as you know, the Baron has forces at his disposal, of which our common enemy, the Master, knows nothing. On their own, these forces are no match for those of the Master. But if they had a secure base, walls to fight behind, then they would be. So, we have a proposal. If the Baron commits his forces to the defence of your homes, will you speak to your Council in favour of an alliance? All my Baron asks is a seat on your Council and to garrison his troops in the town. In this way, we secure ourselves against the ambitions of the Master."

"This is all your Baron requires?" Sevir asked. "Our other discussions indicated he had somewhat greater aims."

"All in good time, Sevir." Piter said. "These pirates present an immediate threat, and the Master would be certain to take advantage of the chaos they would leave behind them. My Baron wishes only to secure all our positions at this time. The safety and well-being of your citizens is, as always, his paramount concern. Later, when these present matters are settled, we will turn to our larger plans, my friend."

"Got it all planned out, ain't ya, bub?" This was a voice Piter did not recognise. A rough, deep, gravelly tone that played no subtle tricks, but dealt only in that most dangerous of commodities, the truth.

He came out of his chair fast, knife in hand, to face the newcomer. He saw a short, stocky human with thick dark hair and a rugged face, who watched him steadily and with an utter lack of fear. He glanced behind the man, who noticed and gave a feral grin.

"If you're looking for your babysitters, don't bother. They're in no condition to do anything."

Even with Piter's Mentat training, it took him a moment to realise that this man must have taken down two Sardaukar quickly and silently. No ordinary foe, then.

Piter held up his knife, slowly and carefully, before letting it drop to the floor. "I yield." He said simply, then moved fast, the slender poisoned blade flicking out of his sleeve as he struck.

There was the sound of something falling to the floor, and a spurt of dark liquid. Piter stared down, realising his was looking at his own arm, severed just below the elbow, lying on the polished wood. Claws had sprung from his opponents' hands, and he had moved even faster than Piter. The pain was starting now, and Piter realised he was losing blood. _Pain is a function of nerves. _He repeated the old Mentat drill to himself. _Pain comes as light comes to the eyes. Effort comes from the muscles, not the nerves. _He went for a killing strike with his remaining hand. Too slow, the clawed man was already moving. The room turned upside down, then came to rest at a sideways angle. In the few seconds before his brain died of oxygen starvation, Piter de Vries realised it was his own decapitated body he could see slumping to the floor.

"It's going to take a lot of work to clean this room up!" Sevir told Logan peevishly.

The Canadian shrugged. "Harry told me he has spells that can clear anything up in a jiffy. I couldn't do it outside. Too many people about."

He walked over and picked up Piter's severed head, then carried it through to the hallway, where he placed it in a box on a nearby table. Sevir followed him, seeing Piter's two Sardaukar bodyguards. One lay on the floor, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, and clearly quite dead. The other was propped in a sitting position against the wall, his hands and feet tied, his mouth taped, blindfolded and clearly out cold.

Logan went over to the unconscious man and squatted in front of him to slap him awake. "Listen up, pal." He growled. "You got a package to deliver!"

_Baron Harkonnen's Sanctum, Moon Tanelorn_

"Damn that Piter!" Baron Harkonnen rumbled. There had still been some use in the killer Mentat, though it was getting close to time to dispose of him. Even the twisted Mentats supplied by the Bene Tleilax were not fully controllable, though more amenable than most. But Piter still knew too much about the Baron, his vices and weaknesses, to be allowed to live much longer.

But without a Mentat, the Baron was at a disadvantage. He knew himself that he could not equal the mental capacity of the Master. He also needed Piter to make sense of the circumstances of his own death. The surviving Sardaukar who had brought Piter's severed head back knew nothing. He had been taken down silently, by someone he had not seen, and kept blindfolded until his release in the forest. Whoever had done that had also killed at last one more Sardaukar, and Piter himself. The only information the survivor could give was the voice of his captor -rough, deep, male and accustomed to command. Which meant nothing in itself. The only kind of person who could do that to a Sardaukar would be a Bene Gesserit witch, who could make her voice sound like anything she wished. If the Sisterhood was somehow involved, then the matter had become grave. If it was only a single witch, then it was less of a threat. But it also meant that the Harkonnen spy network in the town might be compromised.

The Baron had had the survivor executed – failure was failure and not to be tolerated – and activated his secondary plan. This one lacked elegance, but had the advantage of simplicity.

Leandros' pirates would make their attack, but the Baron would not intervene. He would allow the town to be sacked. If the town had any defences, they would be revealed, if not, the place would be on the verge of destruction. If, as the Baron surmised, there was something in the town -the weapon suppressor, for instance – which the Master wished to obtain, he would have to act. Either he would commit his troops to drive off the pirates, or direct them to attack the weakened defences after the raid was pushed back.

In either case, the Master would be left with no defences except the Sith Warrior, Darth Maul. No matter how formidable that creature might be, he could not hold out against more than twenty Sardaukar. With his one bodyguard dead, the Master would be at the Baron's mercy, and could soon be – _persuaded_ – to reveal his secrets. That left only the madman Voldemort – the rest would obey the Baron as easily as they had the Master, they were only machines. But the Baron had long ago taken steps to neutralise the self-styled wizard.

As to Leandros, if he survived, the Baron would pay him the promised price. He could be dealt with later, once House Harkonnen was returned to its rightful pre-eminence.

_Town Hall, Moon Tanelorn_

Mira's injury had left her in a support role, which she was to an extent grateful for. Not that her inability to fight beside Titus on this occasion didn't rankle, but at least she had a chance to use her organisational abilities.

With the help of the Council, she had commandeered several large buildings near the centre of the town as rest centres for the troops. It might have been easier to let the fighters retire to their own homes when off duty, but Mira told the Council that it would be important to have all the soldiers in one place, in the event of an emergency. Units could be pulled together and deployed much more quickly from a central location. In order to support this, the two main inns had been designated mess-halls, and the Guildhall as a barracks where off-duty fighters could catch some sleep. The local Adeptus Mechanicus had joined forces to provide maintenance and repair from the town centre shops – setting aside commercial rivalry for the moment. Finally, the Town Hall itself had been converted to a field hospital.

It was early evening, and Mira had finally done all she could do for now. Time to head for the inn where Titus and the others would be, have a meal and then whisk Titus back to the TARDIS for a well-earned cuddle and some sleep!

"Lieutenant Mira? Can I speak with you?"

Mira turned to see a slender, dark-haired human girl looking enquiringly at her. The child's name was Susan, Mira recalled, and she looked to be about twelve or so. She had turned up promptly every morning and helped out eagerly wherever she could. Susan was exceptionally intelligent and seemed to be held in high regard by the locals, so Mira had had her doing a lot of the necessary calculation and paper work.

"What is it, Susan?" Mira asked.

"I'm sorry to delay your dinner, but it's very important that you speak with my grandfather. Can you come with me?"

"Of course." As Susan led her out, Mira asked, "Who is your grandfather?"

"People call him the Counsellor." Susan told her. "It was Grandfather who advised the Council to contact Captain Titus. I'm sorry I have to bring you to see him, but he doesn't go about very much. People are always stopping him to ask for advice, you see." She lowered her voice confidentially. "He doesn't really like people very much, you know."

They walked in silence for a while, finally turning into a narrow street that ended in a wooden fence. In the fence was a gate. Susan put her hand on the gate, then paused and tuned to Mira.

"I'd better apologise in advance, Mira. Grandfather is very clever, but a little set in his ways. He can be impatient, abrupt, outright rude in fact. You mustn't mind him."

Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the gate open and led Mira into a small yard. Soldier-like, Mira noted that all the surrounding walls were blank, no windows overlooked the yard. In the middle of the space stood a blue wooden box, roughly large enough to hold one person. The translation matrix of Titus' TARDIS allowed Mira to read the Ancient Terran writing – _Police: Public Call Box_.

Susan went up to the box and inserted a key into the lock. The door opened and a bright light shone out.

"Grandfather!" Called Susan. "Lieutenant Mira is here!"

"Well bring her in, child, bring her in!" The voice was dry, and reminded Mira of a teacher, or an Inquisitor. She stepped into the box, not entirely unprepared for what she was about to see. It was, as she suspected, a TARDIS, different from hers and Titus', but the hexagonal control panel was unmistakable.

The man standing beside it was of medium stature, thin, stooped and elderly, with long white hair and sharp features. He looked Mira up and down with a pair of piercing eyes.

"Good evening, young woman. I am the Counsellor, at least that's what the people here call me. You are the travelling companion of Captain Titus, hm?"

"Lieutenant Mira, formerly of the 203rd Cadian Shock Regiment." She said formally.

"Ha! Thus the military mind! Why would you think that information of the slightest interest to me, hm?" The Counsellor replied with a touch of impatience.

"Well, I can't answer for you, of course." Mira replied with her own hint of impatience. "But I like to know who I'm dealing with! The Doctor told us he was the last of the TimeLords, for instance, so how did you come by a TARDIS?"

The Counsellor snorted. "How long have you been travelling with Titus? Time is not a linear thing, young woman. What this Doctor told you might have been true for whatever time he came from, but it is not true for me, now!"

"So you are a TimeLord." Mira smiled. "That's all I wanted to know!"

The Counsellor raised an eyebrow. "Could you not simply have asked?"

Miras' smile became a grin. "I've known two other TimeLords – one very intimately – and it's been my experience that members of your species do everything they can to avoid giving straight answers!"

The Counsellor suddenly smiled. "A most remarkable young woman! In that case, you will understand why I can tell you so little."

He took a wooden box from the console and handed it to Mira.

"These are the items I promised your friends as payment. If events proceed as I expect, I will not have the opportunity to present them myself. Therefore, I am leaving the matter in your hands, young woman. You will know when it is time to give each item to its owner.

"I would be obliged if you did not mention this conversation to anyone except Captain Titus. Now I suspect you are late for your dinner, so away you go!"

Tanelorn had no satellite surveillance as such, but the single Federation-built warp-capable runabout the inhabitants owned came with an adequate sensor array. The pirate ship was spotted as it approached the moon.

"An Assault Frigate type." Titus noted. "Capable of ship-to-ship combat against merchant vessels and light warships, of course. But they're mostly designed for boarding actions or planetary assault.

"They'll drop off the raiding party in a couple of dump-boxes, then draw off. They'll be wanting to raid us, not flatten the town, so the ship will probably stay back until called for. Usually to cover a retreat with their heavy guns."

Obi-Wan nodded. "If they're anything like the space pirates I know, their troops will be light assault – no heavy weapons. And since energy weapons don't work here, they might have to go hand-to-hand more than they're used to."

"Which means," Kratos stated, "that we have an advantage. Sharpe's defence unit has a full complement of those autoguns, for one thing. And when it comes to hand-to-hand, we have everything we need."

"Then let's get ready!" Titus said.

It was a classic raid in the beginning. The frigate – according to the writing on the prow it was called _Fruit of Betrayal_ – swept in low and fast, dropping two box-like objects into the woods near the town.

Harry, who was waiting with Sharpe on the walls, asked "Why not just drop them in the town?"

Sharpe shook his head. "Too risky, mate. You don't want to be getting your lads out of something like that right in the middle of the enemy. You want the time and the chance to get formed up and ready. Surprised you don't know that, Harry!"

Harry shrugged. "I'm a policeman, not a soldier, Richard. We don't deploy, we go in and nick people!"

Sharpe snorted. "You act like a soldier – a bloody good one, too!"

Titus' communicator beeped, he flipped it open. "Titus."

"Logan." The Canadians' voice was muted. "They're deployed and moving out. We got about 25 lizards armed for hand-to-hand, 25 bugs with guns and maybe ten cyborgs.

"My people are gonna stalk, take out stragglers. The cyborgs aren't disciplined, we should be able to thin 'em down. Logan out."

"Right!" Titus thought for a moment. "They won't be expecting much in the way of defence or tactics. They'll probably settle their shooters at range and use them to cover the fighters until they get close.

"Harry and Elrics' magic will probably cause a few casualties. Then Richards' group can keep the shooters' heads down while the rest of us get in and take out the fighters.

"If we can force them to retreat, that would be best."

"Or we could slay them all!" Elrics' voice showed no trace of compassion.

"Foolish." Kratos growled. "If we kill them all, who will spread the fear of this planet among others of their kind?"

The discussion got no further, as the first contingent of raiders appeared out of the trees. The next few minuted were instructive and, for those with a Klingon or Spartan mindset, amusing. Harry's Confundus curses and Mazing Charms had several of the reptilians and insectoids wandering blindly into deadfalls or getting inextricably tangled in mazes of trenches and stakes. Four out of ten cyborgs had made it past Wolverine and his scouts, only for three of them to be sucked down into the ground as soon as they left the trees.

Despite this, most of the Insectoids made their way into range of the walls and formed up. The Reptilians and the single remaining cyborg began a steady, if somewhat ragged advance. On the walls, Sharpe remarked to Harry, "I'd tear a strip off any sergeant of mine who let a sloppy line like that advance!"

He turned to his squad. "Right, boys and girls, nice and steady! We're aiming at the overgrown beetles, and we have to stop them shooting back. Start with a volley, then keep up a steady fire at your own pace. Don't try to pick them off one by one, just concentrate on keeping their heads down.

"Ready...Fire!"

The first volley took down about a third of the insectoids and caused the others to scatter and drop. The defenders followed Sharpes' orders to the letter, keeping up a steady fire that prevented the pirate gunners from reforming. Harry did his part, firing off hexes as fast as he could think of them.

"Didn't realise that wand could fire so far." Sharpe remarked as he took aim.

"If I can see 'em, I can hex 'em!" Harry replied.

The sudden display of fire-power from the walls had caused the advancing fighters to hesitate, which was when Titus, Kratos and Elric hit them, along with the assault group.

Elric found himself face-to-face with the hulking Reptilian who commanded the attacking force. He carried a heavy, double-bladed axe which he used with great skill. This would be no easy duel, and Elric found a grim pleasure in finally encountering battle.

For the last few days, the albino's brilliant mind had been busy processing information – knowledge that was beyond the wildest myths or drug-induced fantasies of his people. The relatively simple technology of this world was one thing, but to understand that in the Galaxy beyond there were devices that were even more complex, could achieve things no magic was capable of, was a fascinating thing. He had spent what spare hours he could find in the library of Tanelorn, scanning the databases there, knowing that his time here was limited, and striving to learn all he could.

As a result, Elric had become more than a little stressed. Despite his intelligence he remained, at base, a barbarian from a barbaric world. Now he found that the simple, direct exertion of combat caused all his tension and the incipient headache he had been suffering from to vanish.

"Arioch!" He yelled. "Blood and souls for my Lord Arioch!" He flung himself into battle. _Stormbringer_ responded to his mood, singing joyously as it hacked at the Reptilians' superb defence. The duel was a tough one, the Reptilian was skilled and hardy, neither offering nor asking quarter. He was also powerful, and without the strength lent him by his runesword, Elric would have been quickly overwhelmed. In the end, though, the Reptilian made a fatal mistake, parrying a strike directly, rather than slipping it. _Stormbringer_ howled in triumph and sheared through the axe-shaft so that the lethal blades fell to the ground. Even as his opponent grabbed for a dagger, Elric thrust the hellblade deep into his chest, drawing out his life, his strength, his soul.

Elric drew his sword from the oddly shrunken corpse, and looked around for more enemies, just as a shadow fell across the battlefield.

New technology, other worlds, Kratos had taken little heed of most of it. Not that he was a stupid man, but he was a Spartan. Weapons, training, tactics, supply, defences – these were what concerned him and he had learned exactly as much as he needed to do his job. Now he sought out the one remaining cyborg.

The man – he had been a man, once, Kratos guessed – had no arms. Instead a pair of long metal tentacles extended from his shoulders. He used these as whips, and had already killed one defender and inflicted a nasty wound on another. The cyborgs' extended reach made it near-impossible to close with him, but Kratos' chain blades negated that advantage.

Neither man had fought anyone with the same type of weaponry before, but it soon became apparent that their styles were very different. The cyborg, possibly because he was heavily armoured, was not very mobile. He tended to stand still, relying on his weapons to eliminate anyone who came within his reach. Instead of eyes, he had some kind of metal and glass band that encircled his head and apparently allowed him to see behind him as well as in front.

Kratos, on the other hand, was agile in a way that belied his bulk, and though he preferred to stand and fight, he knew the value of mobility. Over the years since Ares had bonded him to the Blades of Chaos, he had developed a wide range of moves and combinations designed to counter everything from agile, airborne Harpies to lumbering Cyclops and Minotaurs. The cyborg was just a little too slow to catch the Spartan – though there were several near-misses – but on the other hand even Krato' fiery Blades did limited damage to his opponents' cerametal armour.

The Spartan knew that he would tire before the machine-man did, there had to be a way to break the stalemate. He saw that as long as he kept moving, the cyborg confined himself to horizontal sweeps -always at neck or waist level – but that if he stayed still for a moment, then his enemy would attempt a vertical strike. Such strikes drove the tentacle deep into the churned ground, from which it took a second to pull clear. Not long enough to counter, unless...

Kratos paused, as if to catch his breath, and the cyborg responded with a downward strike. Kratos stepped back, the absolute minimum distance he could afford. As it was, the tip of the tentacle scored a long but shallow cut down his chest, which the Spartan ignored. He stepped forward and planted one foot on the tentacle just where it was driven into the earth. The thing was not strong enough to lift him and he took advantage of his opponents' surprise to swing his blades at the root of the tentacle, which was severed in a shower of sparks and a spurt of silvery liquid.

The cyborg yelled in either shock or pain, and swung the other tentacle across at neck height. But Kratos was already moving, diving and rolling under the sweep to come up within arm's reach of his opponent. As he had suspected, the creature had no close defence, He struck once, cleaving the unarmoured head from brow to chin. The cyborg did not fall, but the tentacle dropped, and he did not move again. As Kratos tuned to the battle, there was a roaring overhead.

On the Observation Deck of the _Fruit of Betrayal_, Brakt watched the battle with some concern. These were not simple farmers and traders, at least, not any more. They had somehow come by weapons, training and leadership. Colonel Traag was locked in a duel the outcome of which was doubtful, the Insectoids were pinned down, the Reptilians were at best evenly matched and the cyborgs had been decimated.

"Captain to Observation." Brakt said into the intercom.

Leandros was not pleased to be summoned.

"Can I not leave you to conduct a simple raid without supervision?" He snapped.

Brakt simply pointed to the screen. Leandros took in the situation at a glance, then his eyes widened.

"It cannot be!" He gasped. "The heretic yet lives!"

He pointed a shaking finger to a figure on the screen, a giant of a man in blue armour, wielding a pistol-like weapon and some kind of sword.

Leandros' eye were filled with rage, with madness.

"Oh, Titus!" He snarled. "I have dreamed of this day, but never thought to see it! Brakt, take the ship in, use the railgun, raze this village! They shall pay for harbouring him!

"I am going down to slay the heretic!"

Brakt stared at his Captain.

"Raze the village?" He asked. "We were not hired to do this, Captain. The Baron will not pay us if we destroy what he seeks. Nor will we benefit if we destroy it.

"Vengeance I comprehend, but waste I do not."

Leandros swung round and grasped Brakt by the throat. Starwolves come from the heavy world of Varna. which makes them many times stronger and faster than normal humans. But Leandros was no normal human, and Brakt was as helpless as a baby in his grip.

"Be silent!" Leandros raged. "Titus is the reason I am here, cast out from my Chapter, my world! It is because of him that I must be a thief, a mercenary, a pirate. It is because of him that I travel on this scow, breathing air tainted by Xeno scum like you!"

He flung Brakt across the deck and turned on his heel. "Carry out my commands, Xeno!" He snapped as he left.

Titus was ploughing through the Reptilians, intent on saving as many casualties among the townsfolk as he could, when the familiar sound of a jump-pack came to him through the clatter of battle. He swung round, focusing on the sound to see a figure in black Space Marine armour land nearby. Titus knew of no Chapter that wore matte black armour without insignia. The _Astartes_ approaching him now wore no helmet, and Titus recognised the face, twisted in anger as it was.

"Leandros! Brother, what are you doing here?"

"I am not your brother, heretic!" Leandros shouted. "I reported your heresy, as the Codex required. But then you had to die a hero! I was hated, shunned. I turned my back on Emperor and duty, and sought death. But I did not find it. Instead I came here, a place with no order, no rules, where Xenos and mutants walk among humans as if they had the right to exist!

"Bad enough to have lost all honour, all purpose, but now to see you here, still clad in the armour of the Chapter you disgraced. If I can do nothing else, I can at least put an end to the abomination that is your life!"

With that, Leandros sprang at Titus with his chainsword. Battles between _Adeptus Astartes_ are rare, except when Chaos Marines are involved. Between members of the same Chapter, they are almost unknown. Both Titus and Leandros had received the same geneseed implants, had been trained in the same weapons and tactics by the same instructors. They should have been evenly matched, but they differed in one vital thing – motivation.

Leandros was mad, craving nothing but blood and vengeance. He attacked with utter abandon, pure savagery. At first he had the advantage, driving Titus back, inflicting grievous wounds. But Titus was fighting for something, for many things. He was fighting for the people of Tanelorn. He was fighting for Mira, the woman he loved. He was fighting for his new life, a life in which his battles had meaning; more meaning than the endless, brutal wars of the Imperium. He fought with conviction, and with the skill acquired in a life twice as long as his opponents'.

It was experience that told in the end. Only a veteran could have seen the opening that Leandros left, but Titus saw it and seized it. He cut once, and Leandros' head rolled in the dust.

Titus dropped to one knee. "I am truly sorry, brother." He murmured, then coughed up blood and pitched forward. He rolled onto his back as the sky darkened. He heard the roar of ship engines and saw the frigate loom overhead.

"Mira." He murmured, as his vision began to fade.

On the walls, Harry and Sharpe had been joined by Kenobi, who had command of the final defence cadre. Watching the mayhem below, Obi-Wan remarked, "Looks like I won't get to see any action today."

Harry pointed, "Don't speak too soon!" He said grimly.

As he spoke, the frigate swept down to hover over the battlefield.

"Does that thing carry anything other than energy weapons?" Harry asked.

Obi-Wan frowned. "I'm not familiar with that specific type, but if it's like similar models the Empire uses, then it'll have missiles and the belly turret will have a railgun. It could flatten this entire town!"

"Then we'll have to board it!" Harry snapped. "I can see a window there with an empty room behind it..?"

"That'll be the Observation Deck." Obi-Wan said. "But I don't see how we're to get there..."

"My department!" Harry told him. He grabbed Sharpe's arm with one hand and Kenobi's with the other. "This is going to be rough, guys." He said, then disapparated, taking both men with him.

_The Master's Redoubt, Moon Tanelorn._

Lord Voldemort looked up from his scrying-glass.

"They are defending well, Master, but they are taking casualties. The giant in the blue armour has defeated the pirate leader, but has been wounded, perhaps mortally. It would be wise to strike now, with all our force."

The Master hesitated. This was a day before the Dalek had stipulated, but only a foolish leader let opportunity slip. Anyway, he was not averse to spoiling his 'employers' plans - Daleks were not noted for honest dealing.

"Go." He said. "Attack now, while they are distracted and weakened! Everything we have."

Voldemort rose and left, calling orders as he did so. The Master sat back in his chair, then suddenly became aware of a tension in his bodyguard.

"What is it?" He asked.

The Sith Warrior moved in front of his Master and dropped to one knee.

"Master," he said softly, "I feel a ripple in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of a Jedi Knight. The Jedi who was responsible for my exile here."

The Master waved a hand. "Go, my friend, go. I am safe here, I have my own...methods."

Darth Maul rose, bowed and left. The Master sat back.

Unnoticed, in the shadows, Baron Harkonnen slipped quietly away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**Five**

_Observation Deck, Assault Frigate 'Fruit of Betrayal'_

The deck was, luckily, empty.

"Whouf!" Sharpe gasped. "D'you do that a lot, Harry?"

"Only when absolutely necessary." Harry told him.

"Don't blame you," Kenobi remarked, "it's unpleasantly like being drunk!"

"What's unpleasant about being drunk?" Sharpe asked.

"Ask a glass of water." Kenobi replied dryly.

At that point, the door burst open and a contingent of ill-assorted beings dashed in, waving weapons and generally behaving in an inhospitable manner.

Harry got off a single Killing Curse, which took down the leader, before Kenobi and Sharpe piled into the rest. The Jedi Knight moved lightly, apparently effortlessly, wielding his lightsabre with an elegance Harry had only seen in martial arts films. Nevertheless, he was lethally effective. Sharpes' style was more basic, he used a heavy, thick blade in a manner as brutally efficient as Kratos. No melee fighter, Harry confined himself to watching his allies' backs and using a few well-aimed curses to protect their rear.

The deck was cleared in remarkably short order.

"Oughtn't there to be more of them?" Sharpe asked.

Kenobi shook his head. "This vessel is designed and crewed for raiding and boarding actions. Most of the crew will be fighters. In an engagement like this there'll only be a skeleton crew left aboard. The rest will be on the bridge, and if I've got the configuration right, that'll be one level up and a little aft of this room.

"We'd better get up there before they start using the heavy guns!"

They met no more opposition on the way to the bridge, which was pretty much where Kenobi said it would be. They went in fast, spreading out to cover the whole room.The various beings at the consoles turned, but remained in their seats, except for one. The person in command chair slowly rotated the seat to face them before rising from it and stepping toward them, his right hand raised, palm open and forward, in a universal gesture of parley.

He was very tall, easily two and a half metres, Harry judged, heavily built and powerfully muscled. In place of the usual grey coverall, he wore leather trousers and boots, and a sleeveless jerkin that exposed his muscular arms. The arms, like his face, were covered in a fine golden fur. His face was almost human, but slightly longer and narrower, like that of a dog or wolf. It was a hard face, with several thin, faded scars, and the yellow eyes that surveyed the boarding party were those of a man who has seen much, perhaps too much.

"You're a Starwolf." Kenobi stated.

A bitter smile touched the mans' face. "I was a Starwolf." He said. "Now I'm an exile. My name is Brakt, and until a few moments ago, I was second in command of this ship."

"What happened a few moments ago?" Harry asked.

Brakts' grin was genuine this time. "A few moments ago, Captain Leandros, the barbarian who commanded this vessel, crewed it with twisted cyborgs and psychopaths and took more interest in shedding blood than collecting plunder, died in the field down there. With him went most of the scum he'd recruited. The last few were dealt with by you three. Only the Xindi survive down there, retreating in good order.

"Gentlemen, I ask for a truce. I ask permission to collect those of my crew who remain groundside and to leave this world in peace."

Sharpe locked eyes with Brakt, the Varnan met his gaze steadily. These two understood each other, they were two of a kind, both with the makings of either a soldier or an outlaw. Sharpe nodded.

"Done." He said. "Kenobi, use that talker thing and get hold of Titus. Have him order our people to disengage and let the Xindi retreat."

Kenobi flipped open the communicator. "Kenobi to Titus."

There was a pause, then a voice came out of the device. "Logan here. Titus is down, I'm in charge for the moment. Sitrep?"

Kenobi explained briefly, Logan acknowledged and signed off. Harry turned to Brakt.

"We need to get down there."

Brakt nodded. "Of course. We have a teleport pad you can use.

"One thing, do you know the whereabouts of one Piter de Vries, or a Baron Harkonnen?"

"De Vries is dead." Harry told him. "We don't know where Harkonnen is."

Brakt nodded again. "Fair enough. If you do find the Baron, do me a favour..." he gave a sudden fierce grin, "don't kill him _too_ quickly!"

_The Town, Moon Tanelorn_

Mira had been coordinating the retrieval of the wounded and helping with triage. There were fewer casualties than she'd expected, but the job was no sinecure. The sudden sharp tingling against the skin of her chest brought her up short, however. She pulled on the chain around her neck and brought out the TARDIS key Titus had given her. It was glowing, with a steady, urgent pulsation. Mira dropped everything and ran.

The interior of the TARDIS was also pulsing, light-dark, light-dark, in the same urgent rhythm. As soon as she entered, the door slammed behind her and the engines began to whirr. The trip was almost instant, in fact all Mira saw was two figures materialising on the floor near the console. Kratos was kneeling beside the bloodied form of Titus, speaking roughly and urgently.

"Stay with me, Space Marine! No Spartan would dare die from such petty scratches, are the _Adeptus Astartes_ so weak, then?"

Susan had been fretting to go out and help, but her grandfather was adamant.

"We need to remain here, my child!" He had said firmly, and that was that.

Then the lights in the TARDIS flickered, and an urgent sound came from the console. The Counsellor began to manipulate the controls, with more urgency than Susan had ever seen.

"Are we leaving, Grandfather?" She asked, a little catch in her voice.

The old man didn't stop working, but his voice was gentle. "I know you have been happy here, Susan, and I had hoped...Never mind.

"Yes, we must leave, and quickly. There are only two possibilities. Either the third ship becomes fully active, and the temporal stresses crack this moon apart, or Titus dies. If that happens, a TARDIS that has lost two companions in a short time can easily go insane, which is even more dangerous to us."

"What about..._him_?" Susan asked cautiously.

The Counsellor shrugged. "My old friend may have lost his way, child, but he is still one of us. He will know, as I do, what might occur. He may take his chance to flee, or his chance to remain. Who knows? We may yet meet him again, hm?"

"Where are we going?" She asked, as the engines began whirring.

"A charming little backwater of a planet." He told her. "Nothing ever happens there. The people call it 'Earth'."

It was taking far too long to get the armour off Titus. He couldn't stand and was at best semi-conscious, and Mira could only use one arm. Fortunately, she was familiar with the complex, ancient technology of Space Marine armour, so she could remove the various parts. On the other hand, getting the massive Titus into a position where she could do so was not so easy, even with the willing assistance of the brawny Spartan.

Then there was a pounding on the door. The TARDIS, of its own accord, opened up and Harry dashed through. Taking in the situation at a glance, he levelled his wand and barked, "_Levicorpus!_". Titus promptly floated off the floor to a height which allowed Mira and Kratos to strip the last of the armour from him.

"That does not look good!" Harry commented. "This ship have a sickbay?"

Mira shook her head. "Apparently TimeLords don't need them." She told him. "Space Marines are genetically engineered for fast healing, but this...! Back on Macragge, they'd probably build him into a Dreadnought shell, but I don't know..." She choked. Kratos put an arm over her shoulders.

"Courage, Mira! D'you want the last sound he hears to be your tears?" He growled as Harry gently lowered Titus to the floor.

There was a silence, and in that silence, they all heard a sound. A steady 'tick-tock, tick-tock'. Harry stared around.

"Sounds like a clock, or a watch." He muttered.

Mira's eyes widened, then she dashed to a table beside the console. At Titus' urging, she had put the box the Counsellor had given him in the TARDIS for safe-keeping, and it was from the box the sound was coming. She opened it and rummaged for a second, before taking out a gold-cased pocket watch with peculiar patterns etched onto it. This was where the ticking sound was coming from.

Mira brought it over and showed it to Harry and Kratos. "This was the reward the Counsellor promised Titus." She told them. "Why should it suddenly begin ticking now?"

Kratos shook his head. "I have never seen such a thing."

Harry squinted at the case. "Those symbols," he indicated the etchings, "I've seen them before. It's Gallifreyan script, the language of the TimeLords."

Titus stirred and his eyes opened. They were clear as he gazed at Mira.

"Father's watch." He muttered thickly. He tried to sit up. Kratos moved behind him and helped him to a sitting position. Mira dropped to her knees beside him and pressed the watch into his outstretched hand. Titus gazed at it hungrily, and as he did so, the watch – apparently of its own accord – flipped open. A cone of golden light spilled out of it to bathe his face. To those watching, it seemed that waves of – _something_ – were passing along it from watch to man.

Then it was over, and Titus looked up at Mira with the eyes of someone who finally knows who and what he is. With a surge of energy, he pulled himself upright, despite his terrible wounds.

"That's it!" He gasped. "I understand it all now! Get back, all of you. _Now_!"

The last word was practically a shout, and the others moved back from him, as much in surprise as anything. Titus drew himself fully erect, arms out to the side, head thrown back. From every visible area of his flesh, golden energy suddenly flared, part flame, part corona. The TARDIS reeled, sending them staggering. Harry felt an energy discharge like nothing he'd felt since he'd seen Duncan MacLeod take Gryffindors' Quickening. Then Titus gave a roar that was half pain, half triumph, the flare vanished and he pitched forward to land on his hands and knees.

Mira flew over to him. "Titus!" She demanded anxiously. "Are you all right?"

He looked up at her with a grin. "Never better! How about you?" He replied. Her response rendered speech impossible for both of them for some moments. Harry and Kratos exchanged a wry glance and pretended to take no notice while this went on, and on.

Finally, when speech was an option again, Titus remarked, "I take that to mean I haven't changed much?"

"No!" Mira told him, then "Yes! No! Sort of. Your scars are gone."

It was true. Titus' hair, which had been quite savagely cropped, was thicker and longer, and the long scar that had traced a furrow through it above one ear was gone, along with all the other scars, large and small, and most of the lines which had marked his face. Before, he had clearly been older than Mira, now, they looked about the same age. As he rose to his feet, helping Mira up, it became clear that all his wounds had vanished.

"Odd," he said, half to himself, "the process usually causes a complete change in appearance...Wait, wait, wait! The Doctor said he'd been working with the Emperor to create the Primarchs. He told us the Emperor wanted his DNA to create Time Marines, so the Emperor probably made the geneseed compatible with the regeneration process!

"When Father put me in the Chameleon Arch as a baby, he'd no way of knowing I'd be chosen for the Ultramarines. Even then it was just chance that put me on Graia, where Drogans' device woke part of my TimeLord DNA. Just chance that the Doctor turned up on the _Scourge of Heresy_ and made me a present of this TARDIS. But how did this Counsellor come by the watch?"

Harry gave a short laugh. "My old Headmaster used to say there was no such thing as chance." He pointed out. "I'll bet that goes double when there's a TimeLord or two in the mix! No offence."

"None taken." Titus allowed. "How are we doing?"

Harry and Kratos briefed him in on the situation, the withdrawal of the pirates under their new commander.

"But," Kratos said, "Logan reports new forces moving through the forest. More mechanical men, two kinds, he says, more of those half-man, half-machine creatures, and ordinary warriors."

"Let's take a look." Titus stepped to a console. A large screen on one of the walls lit, showing a crowd of mismatched figures advancing through thick woods.

"Cybermen!" Harry hissed. "They tried to invade Earth a few years back. Nasty bastards!"

"Cylons as well, and Borg." Titus noted. "Plus those human types. The red flashes on the uniforms give them away: Crimos – Criminal Psychopaths – trained as assault troops. Surprised the Borg haven't assimilated most of them, but I expect the Master has them in check. They've got two Marauders -those walking machines -that are going to be a problem.

"Right, now listen! The Counsellor was another TimeLord, but the sensors tell me he's left Tanelorn. But there is another TARDIS here, I think it belongs to the Master, who I now know is some kind of rogue TimeLord – a power-hungry madman. The Counsellor was using his TARDIS to lock the Master's ship here, and that was what stopped energy weapons working. They'll work now, but those people out there don't know that, and they don't have any with them.

"This is what we're going to do. Kratos, you, Elric, Kenobi and Sharpe are to carry on defending the village. Harry, you and Logan need to come with me. I've got a fix on the Master's TARDIS, we need to find his base and break whatever hold he has on his troops. With any luck, they'll turn on each other and we can just pick off the survivors, if any."

"What do I do?" Mira wanted to know.

Titus smiled down at her and showed her his hand. It was glowing with a soft golden light.

"A bit of spare regeneration energy." He told her. Then he touched her wounded arm. Mira felt a warmth flow through her, then she slipped her sling off and flexed her arm.

"Good as new!" She exulted.

"Then get yourself out there, Lieutenant, and apply boot to bottom!" Titus instructed her.

She took a moment to say a very thorough, if non-verbal, 'goodbye and good luck' to Titus before following Kratos out of the TARDIS.

"While we're waiting for Logan," Titus told Harry, "I need to get myself some fresh armour. Give me a hand with this suit, will you?"

Titus picked up some of the armour, Harry levitated the rest, and they set off down a long corridor, eventually reaching a large room lined with suits of armour of all kinds.

"The previous owner of this ship," Titus explained, "was by way of being a collector of armour and weapons, especially advanced types. He used to try and alter history by giving advanced weaponry to one side in specific wars to change the outcome. Never quite succeeded, though.

"But it does mean that I acquired a very good automated repair system and several spare suits. Had to respray them, of course, don't want anyone thinking I'm a Blood Angel or a Space Wolf!"

"Oh, that'd never do!" Harry agreed solemnly, and they both laughed. Harry dumped the armour where Titus showed him, glanced around, then gave a start.

"Bugger me!" He said. "Where did you get that one?"

"It was here when I got here." Titus replied. "Funny story about that one, though. It used to be kept in the Chapter House on Macragge. Legend says it was one of the very first suits of powered armour ever made, by an ancient Tech-Priest before even the Emperor was born. It disappeared during the Horus Heresy Wars, everyone assumed the Warmaster stole it, as he did many relics.

"Looks like it'd fit you. Do you want it?"

Harry looked at the red-and-gold armour. "Wouldn't know where to begin working it!" He admitted. "It's just that, in my present, it belongs to a friend of mine. Don't know how he'd react to being called a 'Tech-Priest' though! His usual title is 'billionaire playboy inventor'!"

Titus stared at the suit, then at Harry. "What's he like?" He asked.

"Tony Stark? Brave, funny, clever as they come. Always tinkering with things. Not popular with my mother-in-law!" Harry told him.

"Your mother-in-law?" Titus was intrigued.

"Yeah, Tony came over for a visit and met my in-laws. Ginny's dad is dead keen on muggle technology, unlike a lot of wizards, and of course Tony is fascinated with all kinds of gadgets, including magic items. So the two of them are great mates, and Tony comes over sometimes to show my dad-in-law things or look at something Arthurs' found, and they go in the shed and tinker. Problem is, frequently the tinkering ends with a biggish bang! Been through four sheds so far, and two trips each to the hospital!"

Titus gave a bellow of laughter, then suddenly sobered.

"You know," he told Harry, "just a little while ago, I'd have been angry with you for mocking a sacred figure in the Imperium's history. It strikes me that the society I grew up in takes itself a little too seriously, sometimes!"

By this time, they were back in the control room, where Logan was pacing up and down.

"We got time for jokes?" He wanted to know.

"There's always time for jokes." Harry told him.

Titus went to the controls. "I'm taking us as close as I can safely get to the other TARDIS." He explained. "This old girl hasn't fully woken up, yet, so we can't lock the Masters' ship. Once we get there, we're going to need your tracking abilities, Logan, to back-trace to the enemy base."

_The Master's Reboubt, Moon Tanelorn_

It was not the way of House Harkonnen to fight at the head of their troops. Such _bravura_ heroics were best left to the foolish and flamboyant Atreides. A true leader stayed apart, directing strategy. So the Baron advanced carefully at the rear of his Sardaukar.

The base was empty, but the brooding presence of the Master still filled the place. Not for long, though. The Sardaukar moved quickly through the door of the throne room, spreading out efficiently to cover the lone figure seated there. The Master, to the Barons' disappointment, seemed neither afraid nor surprised.

"So, here you are, Baron." He said with a quiet smile. "Along with your toy soldiers. Rather later than I'd anticipated."

The Baron forced calm into his voice. "My timing was carefully considered, of course, along with everything else.

"Now, of course, what follows depends entirely on you. It would be quickest and easiest for both of us if you were simply to tell me where your device is, and how it operates. Then you will have a quick, clean death. If, however, you choose to be stubborn, be assured I will extract the information I need. You will not find that process pleasant, nor will you survive it."

The Master laughed. "Carefully considered?" He mocked. "You've been improvising since the death of your henchman, Piter. Did you honestly think I was not aware of your little network among the townsfolk? Or of how easily the Cardassian turned it?

"Could you imagine that, having at my beck and call the services of the greatest wizard Legilimens of his generation, I could not and did not know what you were thinking and planning every hour of every day? About your little deal with the pirates that went so wrong over a personal feud?"

The Master sighed and rose to his feet. "However, amusing as this may be, I do have other matters to attend to. Do not let me see you again, Harkonnen. You would not survive the encounter."

He turned to leave. The Baron shouted "Seize him!" The Sardaukar moved forward, and three beings suddenly appeared in front of the dais.

Two red, flanking one green, all three the stuff of nightmares, of the blackest legends of humanity. The Baron recognised them, from illustrations in ancient books, from his nurses' stories; "If you're a bad boy, Vladimir, the Daleks will come in the night and get you!"

He turned to flee. There was no point watching a battle that could only have one outcome. An entire legion of Imperial Sardaukar could not stand against three Daleks. But he did not flee blindly. He pushed on, deeper into the Redoubt, towards the one place he had never been. He would have his revenge yet!

_Outside the town, Moon Tanelorn_

Sharpe and his rifles were back on the wall, but Mira, Kratos, Elric and Kenobi remained outside with their forces. The network of stakes and trenches created by the Zarbi might be a maze to invaders, but to the defenders it was somewhere to hide, to move unseen, and to strike from ambush.

Kenobi was worried. Their people were certainly willing and brave, but the creatures they were facing were not simple pirates. Crimos and Borg carried a similar reputation for ruthless efficiency, but were not entirely invulnerable, especially if, as he suspected, the Borg were less than fully functional. Cylons were known to be clumsy in infantry combat, especially where the terrain was poor. Cybermen, however, had few or none of these disadvantages.

Mira was more concerned with the Marauders. These walking machines, manned by Crimos in armoured cabins, were equipped with heavy Vulcan cannons and rocket launchers. They would be impregnable to the autogun fire from the walls, which meant getting in close. Mira was not at all sure, though, that even Elric or Kratos' magical blades would do any significant damage. So it might well be down to Kenobis' strange abilities, and the 41st Millennium Vengeance Launcher Mira herself had grabbed before leaving the TARDIS.

Then the Klingon woman, Dera, spoke up from the place beside Kratos.

"Who's driving the agri-vehicle?"

Mira focused her field-glasses at the large unit, which seemed to be heading toward the Marauders at high speed.

"Nobody." She said. "Did somebody forget to switch off the programming?"

"It doesn't have an auto-function..." Dera was saying just as one of the Marauders fired a rocket at the approaching vehicle. The missile fell a little short, exploding just in front of the agri-unit and flipping the heavy vehicle into the air.

But as it spun, it _changed_. Parts slid against parts and locked into a different configuration. When the thing landed, it was a humanoid robot, larger than the Marauders, and still bearing down on them. Raising one arm, it fired a plasma bolt from a weapon mounted on its forearm that blew one of the Marauders to fragments. The other opened fire with its cannon, which the charging robot took no more notice of than a rain-shower. It closed with the Marauder, drawing a large blade which had clearly served as a ploughshare and slicing its opponent into scrap metal in seconds.

The other enemy troops had been counting on the Marauders to lead the assault. For a moment, they seemed confused, but then they pulled back and began to change their formation. The giant robot retreated to behind the fortifications, and Mira brought her troops up to support it.

"You're an Autobot, aren't you?" She said as she came up beside him. He looked down at her.

"My name's Harvester. I was a farmer back on Cybertron. When the Decepticons attacked my station, I took a hit, then found myself here. There was some kind of field that stopped me transforming, until a little while ago. I saw those Marauders and thought you could use some help."

"Well, you weren't wrong!" Mira told him. "But we're not done yet!" She raised her voice. "Right! Harvester and I will concentrate on the Cylons and Cybermen. The rest of you deal with the Borg and the Crimos. Good luck, everyone!"

The enemy began to advance, and as they had before, the fortifications did their work. Even the Cybermen were unable to keep their formation, and while they, the Cylons and the Borg seemed immune to the magical defences, several of the Crimos were obviously falling victim to them, wandering aimlessly or simply sitting down and staring vacantly around.

_We need to hit them as soon as they emerge._ Mira thought. _If they come through piecemeal, they'll make easier targets._

It happened quite suddenly. The Borg all collapsed simultaneously, whilst the Cylons froze in their tracks. The Cybermen simply turned on the Crimos, who were nearest, and began to attack them. Understandably, the Crimos fought back.

"What in the Emperors' name...?" Mira began, but was interrupted by a shrill screech of rage. She looked for the source of it, finding a figure at the edge of the forest. A tall, thin human dressed in green robes. He shook his fist at her, then vanished with an echoing boom!

Kenobi almost missed it. He felt a spike of Darkness in the Force, and dived immediately, feeling something slice the air where his head had been. He rolled, spun and came up on his feet. "You!" He gasped.

Darth Maul said nothing, merely igniting the second blade of his double-ended lightsabre. Kenobi triggered his own weapon and flowed into the Warrior-ready position. The two stood there, reaching, testing, feeling for a weakness. But Maul was Sith, not Jedi. The Dark Side teaches many things, but patience is not one of them, and his innate aggression forced him to the first move. He attacked in a swirl of orange and black. He was swift, kinetic, savage. Kenobi barely seemed to move, but every attack was parried, every strike blocked. Then the Jedi flung his opponent from him with a flick of his will.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had spent years on Tatooine studying, meditating, perfecting his link to the Force. It flowed through him now, guiding, strengthening and supporting him. Darth Maul had still only been an apprentice when separated from his Master. His anger, his hatred, opened him to the Dark Side, lent him extra strength and speed, but it fed on him rather than supporting him. When he attacked again, only a Master could have seen the opening he left, but Kenobi was a Master now. Mauls' weapon fell from nerveless fingers, dead to the ground. He stared at the shimmering blue blade thrust into his chest, then up at Kenobi. His orange eyes were still full of rage and hate, just for a second. Then they glazed over and he slumped to the ground.

The Crimos had fared surprisingly well, taking down two of the six Cybermen before they were wiped out. The other four barely had a chance to reorient themselves before Mira and Harvester hit them. Between the Autobots' plasma cannon and the delayed-action grenades of Miras' Vengeance Launcher, they went down quickly.

Sharpe had led his riflemen down from the wall at a smart pace just after Harvesters' ambush. Now he knelt beside the, to him, horribly disfigured woman who had led the Borg. She was alive, he saw as he rolled her over. Her human eye flickered open, it was blue, and empty for a moment. Then a profound sorrow and loss filled her face.

"Cut off!" She moaned. "Lost! Alone! Help me! Help us!"

Around them, the other Borg were stirring, making similar appeals. Sharpe reacted on instinct. "Bandsmen!" He yelled. Then remembered where and when he was. "Medic!"

Elric approached the nearest Cylon. It didn't move, didn't react. Yet the tracking red light that was where its eyes should be continued to move back and forth. He placed himself directly in front of it. At once the light began to track more quickly and the thing stirred and spoke.

"By your command." It said.

Dera turned to Kratos. "It appears we are victorious." She remarked.

"How does it feel?" He asked.

She shrugged. "I am not aware of any great joy, any sense of glory. Just the satisfaction of a job well done!"

Then she kissed him. Few humans can effectively respond to a Klingon kiss, but Kratos managed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Seven for Tanelorn**

**Six**

_The Masters' Redoubt, Moon Tanelorn_

The suspensors Baron Harkonnen wore under his clothing were designed to allow him to move normally despite his gross weight. However, with a small adjustment, they could also allow him to move with surprising speed. He doubted that anyone could guess where he was going. The Master had been very secretive about this room, only he and his ever-present shadow, the Sith warrior Maul, had been permitted in here. But Piter had, of course, plumbed every secret of this place at his Barons' command, so Harkonnen knew the access code to the door, and what was in there.

The device would have been forbidden within the Imperium, since it contained a computer, more than a computer. _If Jehanne Butler had only seen this, _Harkonnen thought, _her Jihad would have been even more of a disaster for humanity than it turned out to be._

The machine was a mass of cables and wires, attached to power-sources, transmitters and sensors, but at the core was a Borg vinculum. This had been the Masters' greatest find, salvaged from a Borg scout-craft which had crashed in the mountains to the south. Before then, he had only commanded the loyalty of Maul and Voldemort, and an uneasy alliance with Harkonnen himself. But the damaged vinculum, once in the rogue TimeLords' hands, had gained him the service of the Borg drones who crewed the ship. The Master had reprogrammed the vinculum, boosted its power and the wavelengths it transmitted on, gaining control of the Cylons first, then the Cybermen, and finally the Crimos.

The Borg and the Cybermen lacked the resources to extensively assimilate or upgrade the other wanderers and outlaws who roamed the wild places of Tanelorn. They had been captured, of course, and the Master had tried to control them with the vinculum, but without success. Lacking the technology that was an integral part of the Borg and Cybermen, the purely mechanical nature of the Cylons, and the essential weakness of the psychopathic minds of the Crimos, they had resisted. Resistance had driven them mad, every last one of them, and they were penned in the dungeons of this place, awaiting the Masters' victory, when they would be given, along with the Borg, as reward to the Cybermen, for upgrading or deletion.

No more, though. Harkonnen had studied the machine, studied the plans Piter had copied for him. He knew the vulnerable points and it was at these points he placed the small explosive charges he always carried with him. Then he retreated to the second room, the one only the Master himself ever entered, and activated the detonator. The explosions were small, not over-loud, but the machine went dark and silent at once.

There was a slight sound behind him, and the Baron spun, bringing up the tiny poison dart projector that was his weapon of last defence.

The dark eyes seemed to swallow him whole. He heard a voice intoning: "I am the Master. You will obey me. You _will..._obey_...me."_

The entrance to the Masters' base was well-hidden, but not so well-hidden that Logan couldn't find it, and not so well locked that a simple Opening Spell couldn't gain the three-man expedition entry.

"I don't like it." Wolverine muttered. "It's too quiet."

"Anything at all?" Titus asked.

"Lot of scents, all of them at least a couple hours old. Nothing current or recent that I'm getting yet." Logan told him.

They could have made a dash, but all three were old hands. They were thorough. They searched. They checked every room. Mess-halls, barracks, repair and maintenance shops, practice floors. But always heading toward the centre, until they came to the large Council room and found their first opposition.

The only thing Logan scented was machinery, but even then, his instincts warned him and he was diving and rolling the moment he entered the room. Harry recognised the shapes just in time to throw up a shield. Titus' armour absorbed the first blast, but he also recognised the attackers and knew they would get through eventually, unless he stopped them.

Harry had fought Daleks before, but these were different. Larger, heavier-looking, better armoured, if he was any judge. Their weapons had been boosted as well, if the pressure on his shield was an indicator. There were two of them, both with garish red shells, but they came on with the usual chant of "Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!"

Titus had rolled to one side with a speed that belied his armoured bulk. Now he came up on one knee and opened fire with his Storm Bolter. One Dalek stopped in its tracks, battered by the hail of fire, but this was a New Paradigm drone, and its more advanced shell held.

A silver glow suddenly surrounded Harrys' wand. As he stared, the Spell Enhancer that Dr Strange had placed there before Harrys' last fight against Daleks, and which had vanished immediately afterward, reappeared.

The Dalek which had fired at Harry glided forward to attack again, then Wolverine was on it. Dalekanium is a near-indestructible compound of bonded polycarbides interlaced with a rare metal once found only on Skaro. It can resist lasers, bombs, most projectile weapons, nuclear explosions and even some magic. But Logans' claws were coated with adamantium, harder and sharper than _mithril_ steel, able to penetrate anything short of neutronium. Daleks have no abilities in close combat, and the drone was being systematically cut to pieces by one of the best close fighters ever born.

Harry went to Titus' aid, levelling his wand and invoking, "_Reducto_!"

Already weakened by Titus' fire, the shell split open and within moments the mutant creature inside had been shredded. Wolverine had cut the armour from the second and was staring in disgust at the thing inside.

"What the Hell are these things?" He wanted to know.

"They're called Daleks." Titus told him. "And they're part of a very long story that we don't need to get into right now."

"All you need to know, and remember, Logan," Harry put in, "is that they'll kill anything that isn't another Dalek on sight! You need to kill them before they kill you." He raised his wand and pointed it at the Kaled mutant that was struggling to escape its wrecked armour and attack them. "_Avada Kedavra_!" The thing died without a sound. "One more thing," Harry said to Logan, "never show a Dalek mercy. They don't have any use for it."

The Enhancer vanished from Harry's wand as suddenly as it had appeared. Harry stared at the wand. _Just how much does Strange know?_ He asked himself. _He's Dumbledore all over again, but about a hundred times more powerful!_

"Well, now we know the Daleks are involved in this," Titus said, "the possible scenarios just got much worse! We were lucky there were only two here, or we'd be dead!"

"We need to find the control centre for this place." Logan said. "Titus, you should be able to figure out the tech that's being used. I can dope out the strategic stuff and weapons. Harry here can deal with any weird stuff."

"Why do I get the weird stuff?" Harry asked.

Logan looked at him with a twisted grin. "You just killed somethin' by pointin' a stick at it and sayin' words bub! Where I come from, that classes as weird!"

Harry was about to reply when something happened. Something strange, but all too horribly familiar. A surge of burning pain shot through his scar, and a familiar but long absent shadow fell over his mind.

"Oh, _fuck!"_ He shouted. "Not him! Not here!" He squinted through the pain at his allies. "I have to go, guys. This is personal, and you can't help. Be back as soon as I can." He paused. "And if I'm not, tell Ginny it was Him again!"

With that, he turned on the spot and vanished with a loud pop.

"What was that all about?" Logan demanded.

"I think Harry just sensed the presence of an old enemy." Titus told him. "I wonder if that's why..."

Logan held up his hand. "Hold it, big guy!" He snapped. "We got incoming, and it stinks!"

They came through the doors at a shambling run. They were filthy, ragged, starved. They brandished every kind of crude weapon. Their eyes were either empty, or filled with mindless rage. They repeated a single word as they came on. "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The dungeon was dark, damp, foetid with human waste, rotted flesh and blood. The creatures – they were no longer human – in the cages milled around restlessly. Sometimes they fought, and those that lost were partially devoured by the survivors.

But they turned with a common surge of hatred as the tall figure appeared in the chamber. With a flick of his wand, Voldemort released them all, then vanished again even as they came for him.

Harry had apparated to where he felt the Dark Lords' presence most strongly. The room was large, and empty except for one corner. In that corner was a stool, and on the stool stood a naked man. He was grossly, hugely, impossibly fat, with pasty white skin and great masses of dark body hair. It was obvious that he stood only with the greatest of difficulty. His legs, though thick as tree-trunks, were clearly more fat than muscle. He had the face of a spoiled child on the head of a grown man, and there was a noose round his neck, fastened somewhere in the shadows above.

Hermione, perhaps even Ron, would have rushed to the mans' aid. A simple Levitation spell was all that was needed. But Harry recognised Harkonnen, he knew what this man had done, to whole planets, whole peoples, in his pursuit of power and wealth. So Harry watched dispassionately as the Barons' legs finally gave out and the stool fell and rolled away. He watched as the noose, designed to strangle, not snap the neck, did its slow work. Then, when he was sure the monster was dead, he severed the rope and the gross bulk fell to the floor with a sodden thud.

Then his scar flared again and a voice snapped, "_Expelliarmus_!" Harrys' wand was wrenched from his hand to land at the feet of a tall figure robed in green and silver.

"Hello, Tom," Harry said coolly, "been a while. Last time I saw you we were burying you in an unmarked grave."

"Of course." Voldemort replied equally calmly. "I would have done the same for you, Harry. There is nothing to be gained in making a place of pilgrimage for ones' enemies."

"Just out of interest," Harry asked, "how did you get here?"

"I have no idea." Voldemort shrugged. "The Master told me I was found unconscious in the woods nearby. The last thing I remember from before was the Killing Curse rebounding on me as you reclaimed the Elder Wand. A strange chance, Harry, that you were to become master of that wand. But Severus once told me you were an uncommonly lucky man." He tapped Harry's wand with his toe. "Yet this is not the Elder Wand. You do not use it?"

Harry shook his head. "I put it back where it belongs, in Dumbledores' tomb. When I die, it'll be forgotten. That wand is the one I've always had, the brother of the one you're carrying now."

"You never were the fool Severus and Lucius claimed, were you, Harry?" Voldemort looked regretful. "I should have followed you more closely myself, rather than trusting their word. Had you kept that wand, your life would have been spent fighting to keep it.

"But at least," he indicated Harkonnens' corpse, "you have learned to let muggles die as they should."

Harry gave a short, humourless laugh. "That's not a muggle, it's a monster! I know the kind of man Vladimir Harkonnen was. Sometimes, mercy shouldn't be allowed to interfere with justice."

Throughout the talk, Harry had been moving. Slowly, subtly, gently. Not approaching his adversary, but altering the angle at which they stood to each other. Harry had not lost contact with his friends from the League, he'd spent time with all of them, learning from them. He still didn't like guns, which disappointed Ziva and Dante, but he had learned to use other weapons. Right now, under his right sleeve, there was a throwing knife in a wrist sheath. He had carefully dropped it into his hand, now he considered his options. It would have to be an underarm throw, Voldemort was too skilled and quick on the wand for the more powerful overarm move.

Harrys' arm was a blur. Ziva would have approved the speed of the throw, but she'd have had words to say about the accuracy. Voldemort, every nerve stretched to breaking-point, reacted quicker than Harry had hoped, as well. The knife sliced along his left side, drawing a spurt of blood from a long cut. Voldemort yelled in pain and shock, staggering back.

But Harry had spent years playing chess with Ron. He knew how to think several moves, or potential moves, ahead. He was already in motion as the knife had left his hand and now he slammed into his opponent. It was the classic Body Strike that Duncan had taught him from the pages of Musashi -"Strike with the left shoulder, in the spirit of bouncing the enemy away." Voldemort literally flew back several feet, to land on his back.

Harry scooped up his wand, and as Voldemort scrambled to his feet, he gave him an ironic salute.

"Hello," he said, "my name is Harry Potter. You killed my parents. Prepare to die!"

Voldemort actually smiled as he returned the salute. "Your dialogue is improving, Harry!"

The another voice, a grating, electronic one, broke in.

"Halt! Do not move!"

Both men turned to face the newcomer. It was another Dalek, one of the larger, more powerful ones Harry had seen earlier. But this one was a deep green, and its gunstick was a simple silver rod, with a centimetre of some darker material at the end.

"What is this? What are you?" Voldemort demanded.

"It's a Dalek." Harry told him. "A member of the most dangerous species in the Universe. It's going to kill us both, I'm afraid."

The Spell Enhancer had reappeared on Harry's wand, but neither the Dalek nor Voldemort noticed. For reasons Harry could not fathom, the green Dalek seemed totally intent on his old enemy.

"You will fail, creature." Voldemort stated with all his old cold arrogance. "I am fated by prophecy to die only at the hands of this man!"

The Dalek aimed its odd gunstick at Voldemort and, to Harrys' astonishment, intoned "_A-va-da Ked-av-ra_!"

The jet of green light struck Voldemort squarely in the chest, and for the second time, Harry saw the Dark Lord fall dead to the floor.

He turned to the Dalek and raised his wand. "I didn't know Daleks could do magic." He said.

"I am the Wiz-ard." The Dalek replied.

"I see." A memory was tugging at Harrys' mind, but he concentrated on the moment at hand. He jerked his head toward the dead Voldemort, trying to make the Dalek look away long enough to cast a curse.

"He always put too much faith in that prophecy." He said.

"The Pro-phe-cy was cor-rect." The Dalek replied.

Shocked, Harry stared directly into the creatures' eye-lens. It was not blue or orange, like others he'd seen, but a vivid, hauntingly familiar, green.

Then the Wizard spun on the spot and disapparated.

For a moment, there was silence, then the sound of ironic applause. Harry turned and saw a tall, dark man standing in the doorway of a large cupboard he hadn't noticed before.

"Bravo!" Said the man. "Quite a performance, and from a masterly cast. I look forward to more developments in this drama."

Harry raised his wand. "You're the Master." He stated.

The Master inclined his head. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr Potter. Please don't brandish that primitive stick at me. Neither of us is aware of the possible consequences of casting a spell at a TimeLord. On the few occasions it has happened before, no-one was left to report.

"As you see, I am quite unarmed, and my hypnotic abilities, though considerable, are less than likely to affect a man who can resist an Imperius Curse.

"Now, it appears my old friend has left this moon, which means I am no longer trapped here. The late and unlamented Baron Harkonnen destroyed my control over the army, which by now will have been defeated by your colleagues, so we have no further quarrel, Mr Potter. For now, at any rate.

"So I will take my leave. Should you see the Doctor again, pray give him my regards."

With that, the Master stepped back into the cupboard. The door closed, and shortly after the cupboard vanished with the familiar whirring sound of a TARDIS engine.

Harry suddenly realised he was mortally tired and hungry and somehow sad. He went over to where Voldemort lay. He retrieved the Dark Lords' wand, placing it on the chest with the long white hands folded over it. Then he sat down cross-legged near the head and spoke, half to himself, half to the dead man.

"I think we'll see you properly buried this time. With a stone. Should it have your birth-name on it? No, just Lord Voldemort, I think. Because you were a great wizard, and in your own way a brave and clever man. You just took a wrong turn back there somewhere. Same could have happened to me, you know.

"The thing is, Tom, you made me what I am. Without you, I'd be the beloved, slightly spoiled, son of James and Lily Potter. I'd get into mischief with my ne'er-do-well godfather and I'd probably be a Quidditch star with an ego as big as Hogwarts Castle. Because of you, I'm a useful member of society, now.

"Life's a funny thing, old friend."

He lapsed into silence, and that was how Titus and Logan found him a little later, quietly sitting vigil over his fallen foe.

They had had their cuts and bruises tended. They had eaten mightily and slept prodigiously. At least, Harry, Kenobi, Sharpe and Logan had slept. The spring in Mira's step indicated that she and Titus might have been otherwise occupied. Similarly, Elric had slipped off after supper in company with a comely widow, while Kratos and Dera both carried marks that gave mute but eloquent testimony to the vigour of intimate relationships, when conducted in the Klingon manner.

Now they watched as the Zarbi, assisted by the Cylons, dismantled the defensive structures.

"Their programming has been completely blanked." Lavok told them, referring to the Cylons. "They simply obey any orders given them at the moment. I may be able to fully reprogram them in time. In which case they will be of great use to our society. Failing that, they can be deactivated."

"What about the Borg?" Mira asked.

The answer came from the towns' chief Medical Officer, a human woman of Native American stock called Dr Hannah Greycloud. "Some of them are catatonic." She said. "Others are violently psychotic. But the majority are beginning to adjust, to retrieve memories of their former lives and individuality.

"Unfortunately, our equipment here is limited. We can remove some of the gross cybernetic implants and replace them with artificial organics or standard bionics. But we can't remove the nannites or reverse the genetic changes. If they ever come within range of an active vinculum again, they'll be reassimilated immediately.

"We could take samples of uncorrupted DNA and grow clones, but they wouldn't be the individuals they had been. I'm thinking of doing that for the catatonic and seriously deranged ones, but not the others."

They needed to stay one more day, certain solemnities had to be carried out. The dead townsfolk, only six, luckily, were buried together, later a monument would be placed over their graves. The remains of Piter de Vries had been cremated already, without ceremony. Now the bodies of the dead pirates, the Crimos and the Cybermen were placed in a common grave at the edge of the forest. Leandros was placed with them: "He chose to live without honour," Titus said grimly, "let him lie without it."

Nearby, two individual graves held the remains of Colonel Traag, who had fought and died with honour and courage, and of Lord Voldemort. The local stonecrafters had promised Elric and Harry that both would have suitable gravestones. Kenobi had slipped into the forest and in a distant glade had cremated Darth Maul on an open pyre in the fashion shared by both Jedi and Sith.

As to the destroyed Daleks, Baron Harkonnen and the bodies of the poor madmen Titus and Logan had been forced to kill, they remained in the Masters' Redoubt. Logan and Titus went back there with some explosives, and collapsed the entire structure, burying the corpses, the vinculum and any other dark secrets the place might hold under tons of rock and earth.

Then it was time to leave. Farewells were cordial, and in some cases tender, but it was clear that the people of Tanelorn wished to return to their peaceful lives. The Autobot, Harvester, in particular, was anxious to get back to work. "He's full of plans," Maki told Sharpe, "to improve yields and variety."

Then they were back in the TARDIS, and a few moments later, they were trooping out into the library at Grimmauld Place.

"Well, finally!" Ginny declared with mock asperity. "Come on before the kids scoff the lot!"

_Dalek Control_

The Supreme confronted the Wizard. "Both es-caped?"

"Yes." Replied the Wizard. "We were suc-cess-ful."

The Supreme looked to the Eternal. "Con-firm."

"Con-firmed." The yellow Dalek rarely spoke, but when it did, there was no mistaking its authority. "Both Time-Lords are now set on the time-track which will bring the Doc-tor to Ska-ro at the end of the Final War. Da-lek hist-or-y is now safe."

"What of Tan-el-orn?" Asked the Supreme. "The moon moves through many time-streams. Will it pro-duce further threats?"

It was an orange Scientist that answered. "Neg-a-tive. The moon is now is-o-lat-ed from our time-stream. No-thing from there can reach us, and we can-not reach it."

"Then we pro-ceed." The Supreme stated.

_Grimmauld Place_

In all fairness, it would have taken fifty kids to 'scoff' the spread Ginny and Kreacher had laid on, even if James had, as Ginny insisted, inherited his Uncle Rons' hollow legs.

"In Kreacher's own defence," the old House-elf pointed out, "he did not know whether Master and his friends would have eaten while they were away."

"Also," Ginny added, "we didn't know what you all might like, so we just did everything!"

There was ham, chicken, beef and pork. There were sausage rolls, pork pies, Cornish pasties and Scotch eggs. There were two types of bread. There was tuna and sardines. There was mature Cheddar cheese and hard-boiled eggs. There was every kind of salad fruit and vegetable, numerous pickles, salad cream and mayonnaise. For a good long while, there was no conversation worth mentioning.

By the time the main course had been replaced by a light dessert (just trifle, fruit cake, apple pie, raspberry flan and custard tart), everyone had more to say. Ginny wanted every detail, of course, and the children listened spellbound. Yet at the end, there was one thing Ginny pounced on:

"Harry, you actually quoted _The Princess Bride_ to Voldemort?" She was incredulous.

Harry shrugged. "Could've been worse, luv. I could've said 'Go ahead, make my day'. Or that one Ron's so fond of -'Did you ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight'!"

Later, after the children had been packed, reluctantly, off to bed, Titus fetched the box from his TARDIS. Sharpe was given his ruby. "I'd have done it for nothing," he noted, "but this'll make life a lot easier with a babby on the way!"

Kenobi took the lightsabre that had once belonged to his Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, and would in due course be passed to Anakins' son. Elric received the milky Heart of Arioch; "This gem has far too much power." he told them grimly, "There are none in my world, even myself, who can be trusted with it. I sought it only to drown it in the deepest sea."

Kratos was handed the pendant. He stared at it for a moment, then said, "This belonged to my daughter, Calliope." He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and handed the pendant to Ginny, saying gruffly, "For your daughter. Tell her that the little girl who had it before her was also truly loved." Ginny accepted the trinket with a mute nod and tears in her eyes.

The miniature went to Logan, who gazed at it for a long time. "I know her." He said finally. "I don't know who she is, but I know her. My memory's gone, all but the last few years, and this is old. But I know her."

Harry got the bundle of letters. They all dated from the first year of this life, and were between his parents and Sirius. He had nothing but a few fugitive memories of that time, the letters wouldn't fill the gap, but they would give him something from it.

It was close to midnight when Titus finally got up and indicated it was time to leave. Hands were shaken all round, and the oddly-assorted group filed back into the TARDIS. Shortly after that, Ginny and Harry were alone again.

"They could have come on a Friday," Ginny complained, "you'll be knackered at work tomorrow!"

Titus had just dropped off the last of the group, when a bell rang in the TARDIS. A screen lit up with a series of co-ordinates.

"Looks like we're needed again, Lieutenant!" He said.

They emerged at the top of a bluff, looking down on a scene of fire-split smoke that was clearly a battle. A woman in combat gear, with a mass of curly blonde hair, was waiting for them.

"Finally!" She said. "My, you are a big boy! The Doctor told me you were, but he didn't say just how big! How _do_ you feed him, dear?"

"Constantly." Mira replied. "Who might you be?"

"Oh, just the Doctors' wife!" Replied the woman. "Which I suppose makes me Titus' aunt by marriage."

"The Doctor said he didn't know my father!" Titus protested.

River Song smiled. "Rule Number One," she told him, "the Doctor lies."

_Avengers Mansion, New York, New York_

Tony Stark wandered into the kitchen, looking for coffee, and was surprised to find Logan there. The taciturn Canadian gestured him to a seat.

"Need to talk to you, Tony."

"What about?" Tony asked.

"Met a friend of yours some years ago." Logan said. "Thing is, _he_ didn't meet _me_ until yesterday!"

"How's that work?" Tony wanted to know, though he had an inkling. "And who's the friend?"

"Guy's English. Six feet, black and green, scar on his forehead, name of Potter. He's a wizard. It happened like this..."

Harry and Logan did some catching up, eventually, at Tony's insistence. Harry also did some research, discovering that Richard Sharpe was actually an ancestor of his, on his mother's side.

Ginny put his adventure to a somewhat more practical use. First, she took care to tell the children about the harsh regime under which Spartans raised their children. Then, when they were being more than usually obstreperous, she would threaten to get Kratos to babysit them. This was a base libel on Kratos who, however surly he might be with adults, was fond of children, but it never failed to have the desired effect.


End file.
